Ethos Watches Brand Identity

ETHOS WATCHES
FULL BRAND IDENTITY

— India's largest Luxury Watch Retailer —

● About Brand

With over 60 stores and over 50 premium luxury watch brands, Ethos Watches is India's largest chain of luxury watch boutiques. It is an authorized retailer for brands like Rolex, Omega, Jacob & Co., Bulgari, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Panerai, and many more. Whether you're a watch collector or a first-time buyer, Ethos offers a wide range of watches and shopping experiences for luxury timepieces.

Launch Website

Project Timeline
2011 - 2025

Role
Head of Design
(Full Time)

Project Skills
Brand Design
Visual Design
Frontend Development

Industry
Luxury Watches

● My Role

My journey with Ethos has been remarkable. I began as a full-time web designer in 2011 when the CEO of Ethos hired me. Over the years, my role has evolved significantly. In 2012, I transitioned from solely being a web designer to taking on web and graphic design responsibilities. By 2014, I had been promoted to Senior Web and Graphic Designer. 2018, as the design landscape grew and UI/UX design became increasingly important, I was privileged to step into the UI/UX Designer role.

What type of work have I done?

I have been involved in every aspect of design at Ethos, creating various design elements from marketing campaigns to brand design, social media content, UI/UX, front-end development, events, etc.

Fast-forward to 2021, and I now hold the position of Head of Design at Ethos Watches. My responsibilities have expanded to overseeing multiple websites, designing store assets for over 60 locations, handling event design, and managing office requirements such as stationery, presentations, marketing ads, social media, and digital product design. One of the highlights of my journey has been the opportunity to work closely with the company's top management, including the CEO, Marketing Head, COO, and brand managers.

Deliverables

– Visual identity
– Office Collaterals
– Social Media
– Events
– Advertisement
– Presentation
– Brand Design

● Visual identity

When I started working at Ethos Watches, there was only one website and a simple typography logo with two categories, the 'summit' and ' watch boutiques', without regional languages. Also, there were no brand guidelines or other marketing assets.

Branding wasn't a hot topic in India in 2012, so we didn't focus on it until 2016. After that, we started stepping into branding, and we've been actively designing since then. I'm sharing some of the branding materials I've designed during my time. Some are still in the approval process or need to be in production.

In the visual identity section, I have covered the basics of visual identity for the brand.

→ Logo
→ Sub Brands Logo
→ Color Palette
→ Typography

Logo Design: Ethos Watch Boutiques, Ethos Summit and other Indian languages.

→ Logo: English Version

→ Ethos in other languages: Since the company primarily caters to the Indian market, the logo is designed in different languages based on each state. Some of India’s popular languages include Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Bangla, Gujarati, and many more.

→ Sub-brand Logo: I have created a few sub-brand options over time. Each logo is designed with the main brand in mind, ensuring it remains recognizable.

Color Palette

The primary brand colour has always been red. However, by incorporating black and white, we have introduced dark grey and light grey, iron, white smoke, and a red gradient to offer more variation for text, borders, backgrounds, and other design elements for both digital and offline use.

→ Primary Color: Red Wine

Typography : We spent several days searching for the perfect font for the brand. The final choices were made with careful consideration of thickness, roundness, and edge details. To create a luxurious feel, we opted for a combination of serif and sans serif fonts. This approach permitted us the flexibility to use different categories depending on the specific design.

→ Sans Serif font : Brother 1816

→ Serif Font : Mrs Eaves

● Office Collaterals

At Ethos, I put a lot of effort into creating a brand design and overall experience similar to what you'd find with other international luxury brands. It's part of our Ethos's DNA. Every touchpoint, whether a shopping bag, warranty card, or even a small thing like a CRE business card, is important to us. I've kept our designs simple to give customers a complete luxury experience.

What are the Challenges?

India is a market where quality is always a challenge, so Finding a printer that consistently gives us what we want, with the right paper and finishing, is tough. Getting the right embossing, debossing, engraving, etching, foiling, and other cool effects for our materials is still challenging as of 2025. Things are improving in India, but finding the right balance between good quality and enough quantity is still tricky.

What have I learned?

In 2020, India experienced a significant shift towards prioritizing branding elements such as packaging quality, printing standards, and various design touchpoints. Before this transformation, packaging considerations were minimal. This experience has provided valuable insights into the evolving mindset of Indian consumers during this transition phase.

→ Stationery: Basic things in fancy mockups

● Social Media

When we started, the social media following was around 12,000 followers on Instagram and 2,000 on Facebook, with similar trends on other platforms. As of today, in 2024, Ethos has experienced a remarkable 1900% growth.

We've designed hundreds of posts for Ethos with the team. Sharing some of the few concepts I've created, following the guidelines provided by management. It's worth noting that, as a retailer, we face various challenges related to using images, videos, and text. I'll share some examples and links to Ethos' social media accounts.

↗ Instagram
↗ Facebook
↗ Linkedin

→ Instagram Stories: The preview of some of the stories

→ Arnold & Sons Story: One of my favourite brands. I have designed this story to provide details about the Luma Magna watch made from stone. I have used the font Brother 1816 as per guidelines and, played around with kerning line height, and made the most important features bold.

→ Carl F. Bucherer: Another Swiss brand made in Lucerne. I have designed this post to highlight the features of the collection, playing around with the watch images in different directions to make them look more dynamic and engaging within the post carousel. The idea is to capture the user's attention as they swipe.

● Events

Event design at Ethos is a crucial part of our business, ensuring that our creations adhere to the high standards of the luxury market and appeal to high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs). I have travelled to various states in India to oversee event design and branding. At Ethos, we have successfully executed notable events for luxury brands such as Omega, Favre Leuba, Rolex, and Bulgari, as well as our internal events. One of our most significant achievements was the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) 2022, regarded as one of the most prestigious events in the Swiss watch industry.

→ Live Events Photos: Here is a preview of some of the creative work I have produced over time.

● Advertisement

Since Ethos is the retailer, we usually use all the official creatives from the brand in malls, POSM, and other categories. These are some concepts we have created in the past; some were life, while others remained concepts.

What were the challenges I faced?

India still requires ample clean spacing for hoardings; it's rare to find one that isn't broken, torn, or dirty. Regardless of what you create, once it's up, it often appears subpar, which can be disheartening for any designer (it's very subjective, never mind). Digital advertising presents fewer challenges, as transitioning to digital platforms allows for more creative freedom. Unlike the colour correction challenges in offset ads, digital advertising offers a more streamlined process.

→ OOH & Digital

● Presentation

I've worked on over 100 presentations for Ethos, covering a wide range of categories while collaborating with the company's top management, including the MD, CEO, COO, CFO, marketing head, and some key executives. The presentations have various purposes, such as investors, board meetings, annual reports, brand presentations, reporting documents, brand manifestos, brand guidelines, and more. Thus, working closely with the leadership team to communicate the company's vision and objectives through these presentations has been an amazing experience.

→ Basic Template