The Collected Works’ campaign for The North Face rings in the 50th birthday of its iconic parka

When The North Face reached out to The Collected Works to create a design system to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of its most celebrated products – the parka – it set off a long journey that resulted in a series of motion pieces and a limited edition zine. The project called for a unifying visual voice, one that would pull together the various strands of the campaign, from the zine to the assets for social media, digital marketing and in-store communication. When The Collected Works took on the project, a chunk of the photography and films were already in place, so the team began orchestrating a choreography that would stylistically align the overall campaign. Straddling both digital and printed outputs, the project found moments of conversation between the two. “As the campaign developed, there was a real back and forth between the printed and motion pieces, as some of the smaller print elements felt appropriate to carry over into animation. For the final motion assets – from short teasers to a longer video – we established typographic motion guidelines, as well as a set of transitions and stylistic elements that would refer to the printed aspects of the campaign.” The zine, however, quickly emerged as the pièce de résistance. Digging into the cultural significance of the parka from various angles, it features interviews with mountaineer and adventurer Conrad Anker, professional athlete and filmmaker Jimmy Chin – both of whom are very familiar to The North Face community, or even the odd mountaineering nerd – along with NYC stylist and street icon Danie Sierra and Quannah Chasinghorse, an activist and fourth-generation land protector of the Alaskan Arctic.