Week 4: Brand Audience & The Fashion Wheel Workshop

Lecture Summary: Community Principles & Brand Strategy

This week’s session with Precious introduced us to the principles of community-led branding and how it connects to values, narrative, and strategy.

We learned three key principles of community branding:

1. Empower dialogue – Everyone deserves to be seen and heard.
2. Understand nuances – No community is a single story due to intersectionality.
3. Create with care – Safe and inclusive spaces are essential when designing for marginalised groups.

Precious also highlighted that community-led branding is not just a design trend, but a response to changes in technology, culture, and human needs. Successful brands, such as Vaseline South Africa and Bayo, build trust and belonging by co-creating with their audiences and speaking in culturally authentic voices.

Key takeaways:

• Co-create with the community throughout the process.
• Create from an authentic and inclusive space.
• Use language and visuals that resonate.
• Think about narrative and lived experience.

Workshop: The Fashion Wheel (Brand Audience Exercise)

In the afternoon, we applied these ideas to understand Gen Z subcultures and their consumption habits through a hands-on activity called the Fashion Wheel.

Task 01 – Identify Subcultures / Tribes
As a group (Wheel 07), we discussed our individual habits and interests to find six distinct subcultures:

1. Plant Lover / Green Thumb
2. Badminton Enthusiast
3. Camping Fanatic
4. Retro Core
5. Otaku
6. Theatre Kid

These categories reflected our hobbies and shopping preferences, from eco-friendly lifestyles to sports gear and fandom culture.

Task 02 – Create the Fashion Wheel
Each group member’s chosen subculture was visualised through a collage-style outfit, arranged around a rotating circular wheel.
For example:

• Badminton – Sporty outfit with racquet and sneakers.
• Camping Fanatic – Outdoor gear, boots, thermos, and beanie.
• Otaku – Anime-inspired T-shirt and accessories.
• Green Thumb – Costume with watering can.
• Theatre Kid – Musical T-shirt and tote bag.
• Retro Core – Vintage Clothes.

This visual mapping helped us understand how fashion, personality, and consumption form identity markers within Gen Z culture.
(See image: our group’s Fashion Wheel design.)

Task 03 – What’s in the Tote Bag?
We then selected one tribe Camping Fanatic to create a “tote bag” filled with items that represent this lifestyle.
Our selections included a tent, hiking boots, reusable water bottle, beanie, map, camera, first aid kit, and healthy snacks.
These objects reflect Gen Z’s adventurous, eco-conscious, and experience-driven values.
(See image: our group’s Camping Fanatic bag moodboard.)

Reflection

Through this workshop, I learned how visual culture and fashion can communicate identity, belonging, and value systems. The “Fashion Wheel” made me realise that brand audiences are not just consumers they are communities with shared mindsets and lifestyles.

From Precious’s lecture, I also understood that successful branding must be co-created with the audience, not imposed from above. Whether designing for a badminton community or a camping tribe, authenticity, dialogue, and inclusivity are key.