Faro
International Brands for Less
Overview
FARO had to be two things at once: a bargain to shoppers and a safe pair of hands to the international labels whose overstock fills the racks. I've been their design partner since the day it pivoted into existence, building the brand, the store blueprint and the work that's carried it to nineteen locations.
The Logo
The wordmark is set in Helvetica, and that was the argument. FARO sells international brands, so its own mark couldn't have a point of view that competed with them. It had to sit on a rail beside every label in the store and look like it belonged there.
Helvetica is the closest thing type has to a default: the face of international retail, used so widely it reads as neutral rather than as a choice.
Tightly set in caps, it's confident at fascia scale and invisible on a garment tag. It carries no style of its own, which is exactly the point.
The Audience(s)
FARO is two businesses wearing one name. To shoppers, a fashion retailer: international brands for less, on a rail that changes weekly. To global brands, a disposal channel: overstock moved into non-competing markets, traced end to end.
The two audiences never meet, so we split the brand by channel. The website speaks to brands, the store and social to shoppers. One identity holds both, doing as little as possible.
Customers
Clothes first, price second, said plainly and often. Big type, real people, the labels front and centre. Built for the storefront and the feed, and for a decision made in seconds.
Brands
Partner work is deliberately plain. No metaphor, no cleverness, just what FARO does: buy unsold stock, collect and recondition it, sell it through high-end stores in non-competing markets. Every claim is written as an operation rather than a promise, because a brand handing over stock it has spent years protecting needs evidence, not a campaign.
Store design
The first store was designed as the blueprint for every store after it. Same signage types, same sign mechanisms, fixtures built so stock can be rearranged as the rail changes, a colour for menswear and a colour for womenswear, and standard storefronts and counters.
Nothing is bespoke to one location, which is why the rollout has reached 19 stores since early 2024 without a redesign in between. Each new store is an install, not a project.
The Website
The website is the brand-facing half of FARO. A shopper searching the name needs one thing, the nearest store, so that's the only consumer function on the site.
Everything else speaks to the supply chain lead: the promise, then the mechanics of retrieve, revive, resell, written as operations rather than positioning. Stock sells in store, not online, so the site's job is to win the supply, not the sale.
