Breaking rules
and banishing black

In 1978 Renzo Rosso founded Diesel on three key principles: passion, individuality and self-expression. Over 40 years later and the brand is still bursting with all three making it not just a fashion label but a veritable lifestyle with its own distinct community.

This was our starting point for the redesign of diesel.com: the Diesel community. We set out to create a digital space where the brand and its customers could really connect, not just through the full range of shoppable products but through a bold approach and full immersion in the brand experience.

The site is mobile first with a simple structure. This leaves space for the strong editorial content to tell the engaging stories close to the heart of the brand and to its community.

Diesel is a brand that has always thought outside the box, so it needed a unique user experience. To achieve this, we broke with tradition and completely banished black from the entire interface. We replaced it with the bright red of the Diesel logo to make the look and feel of the site immediately identifiable. We combined this with a grid-like structure punctuated with asymmetric elements and micro interactions. These particulars all represent a brand ready to challenge the rules while paying attention to even the smallest detail.

“House of Diesel” is the title of Diesel’s e-commerce loyalty program and, as the name suggests, it represents the true home of the brand’s community. So, as well as clearly explaining how the program works the section had to be visually appealing. To do this we created a dynamic animation that plays on the strong brand colour and asymmetric visual language of the whole website. Combined with Diesel’s campaign imagery the animation creates an aesthetic that is half house party half VIP lounge, because House of Diesel is the hottest private venue that everyone wants to get into.