Merchandise Project : PORTA-L

Stage 1. Concept & Storytelling

PORTA-L began with a simple idea: turning a family story into something tangible.

Built around the complexity of family, PORTA-L explores the space between love, conflict, distance, and belonging. Rather than creating merchandise purely as a visual product, the project was developed as a medium to translate personal experiences and emotions into objects that people could wear, keep, and interpret in their own way.

The concept was shaped around the idea that family is never simply one thing. It can be warm and chaotic, intimate and distant, beautiful and painful at the same time.

Stage 2. Visual Exploration & Direction

The visual direction was developed by translating the emotional tension within the concept into a distinctive visual language.

Explored through typography, symbols, compositions, and contrasting visual elements, the design process focused on finding a balance between intimacy and disruption. Each element was considered as part of a larger narrative, allowing the merchandise to feel less like conventional apparel and more like a fragment of a story.

The creative direction leaned into rawness, imperfection, and surreal visual references to reflect the unpredictable nature of family relationships.

Stage 3. Design Execution

• Graphic Development: Developed a series of graphic compositions that reinterpret themes of family, attachment, conflict, and identity through experimental typography and imagery.

• Merchandise Design: Translated the visual identity into wearable pieces, ensuring each design could function independently while remaining connected to the overall PORTA-L narrative.

• Art Direction: Established a consistent visual atmosphere across the collection through composition, texture, typography, and visual symbolism.

• Mockup & Application: Applied the developed artwork to merchandise mockups to explore scale, placement, and how the visual identity translates from screen to physical form.