Mapping the EU’s path towards circularity in fashion

the mission

The Policy Hub was created to foster cross-stakeholder collaboration within apparel and footwear’s global value chain.

The main goal is to open dialogue with policymakers to jointly accelerate the transition towards an industry-wide circular system.

the impact

The Policy Hub presented their framework (policy paper, print) with the overarching vision and policy asks for the textile industry to the EU in late 2019.

The policyhub.org platform was launched in support of that, providing a more in depth overview of sources such as targeted policy papers on specific asks and aspects.

the outcome

A platform - or ‘Hub’; the go-to place for information on circular initiatives, research and best practices.

Main focus revolves around easy navigation and user guidance.

Services

Agency: Story of AMS

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Together with Colin Vermaas:

• Discovery

• Brand Identity

• Product Design (UX/UI)


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Together with Margaux Black


• Information Architecture


• Content creation

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• Branded Assets


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Tea Teearu

• Development

In May 2019, The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry (FESI) and the Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) decided to join forces in the war against waste.

They developed a unified European policy framework to be presented to the EU. This overarching vision with industry asks needed a supporting website for users that wanted to dive deeper into the content.

We didn’t have much to go from — except for the messaging framework.  And as we read, reread, reorganised and redefined, we came to two very important insights:

1. Bold action requires a bold message

2. There’s a lot of information. We need to make sure navigation is easy, accessible, and clear

With these two insights we worked out a UX-based branding. Visuals as well as tone of voice were going to be be bold; UX guidelines were going to be based on the best principles in way-finding.

With a ten pixel grid, the Policy Hub would set itself apart slightly (two pixels, to be exact) from the common. The use of contrasts, bold typography, and strong colours would support their message-first branding.

Navigation, like a metro line, would guide a user’s path past several land marks. The paths, four in total, would be action modes they could take: Measure, Reduce, Support, and Innovate; the land marks being the five stages in the production process.

From our research into way-finding best practices, we established our four design guidelines:

1. Keep it simple

2. Guide at decision making points

3. Visualise

4. Remove the unnecessary

To simplify the Policy Hub’s story, we used icons to represent the five stages of the production process. Animations helped illustrate the most important concept: Circularity.

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We emphasised the effect of different action modes on the stages of production by animating a coloured take-over of the page. The process may be constant, but the changing colours and content indicate that there are many ways to effect change.