DITAworld
Case Study

Social
Strategy
Digital
Editorial

DITAworld: Shifting from PR to creation.


Moving from B2B to B2C, being underserviced by PR agencies and the desire to create a unique voice for the brand resulted in DITA shifting budgets from traditional PR to social content.

Historically PR hits acted like heroin for the brand. Momentarily satsifying, addictive but ultimately eating the brand from the inside out. In order to build and reinforce the brand’s new positioning as ‘A Category of One’  DITAworld was established as a social and editorial platform to bring DITA’s three brand pillars to life through interviews, visual stories and film. 

Designed to align with individuals who are all ‘A Category of One’ in their own right the stories were chosen and organzied according to DITA’s 3 Brand Pillars:

1) Design that Finds Beauty in Purpose
2) Craft that Celebrates the Unseen
3) Culture that Transcends Convention

DITAworld projects then allowed further product based collaborations with individuals at the vanguard of design, craft and culture. Spread that content via syndication, leverage the collaborators social channels and expand our own network while creating content that aligns our own ethos.

DITAworld Views

Visual Arts

Craft that Celebrates the Unseen
Laila by Bibi Cornejo Borthwick

Bibi Cornejo Borthwick was raised surrounded by cameras and fashion, as the daughter of photographer Mark Borthwick and fashion designer Maria Cornejo, so it was no surprise when she stepped behind the lens aged 14.

Borthwick has since developed her own eye that keenly captures the emotive subtleties of an individual and their environment. A distinctly unfettered and candid style, in both film and stills, has seen her lens capture names as diverse as Vince Staples to Celine, and Solange to Comme des Garçons.

For DITA, the immediacy of Borthwick’s lens captures a young girl named Laila she met by chance whilst working in Harlem through her children’s sneaker brand Bellies — which focuses on working with underprivileged kids in inner cities throughout the United States.

“Laila” is the resulting series of images capture her embracing the present day as she dances with abandon whilst the sun sets over Harlem, New York.

Culture that Transcends Convention
Subversion by Jesse Draxler

It’s not often that you give an artist a brief that they largely ignore and you are still happy with the results. Los Angeles based artist and illustrator Jesse Draxler proved the exception to the rule.

Upon sharing the punk spirited inspiration of our new Conique frame, Draxler took the theme of subversion to heart and disregarded the instruction to not include the product. Instead, it is the centrepiece of a brooding series of collages and illustrations which are 99% analog — using the same materials and processes as post-punk zines of the late 70s that inspired the original brief.

Draxler’s process is often iterative and experimental, much like the zeitgeist of that period. That spirit further manifests in the interplay between hand drawn elements, type, photo collage and the stark contrast of elements — plus how he ‘fucked up’ an old printer to get just the right effect for the final artwork.

DITAworld Views

Visual Arts

Culture that Transcends Convention

夜桜  Yozakura by Bjarne x Takata

NY-based husband and wife photography duo, Bjarne x Takata (Bjarne Jonasson and Nanae Takata), bring their disciplines together for a unique dynamic creative process — with Takata coming from a design background to compliment Bjarne’s photographic one.

For DITA, Bjarne x Takata traveled to Japan in Spring 2018 to capture 夜桜 / yo-za-ku-ra — the famous cherry blossoms at night. Yo-za-ku-ra shares the same reverence of simple natural beauty and the principles of Shibui as many DITA frames — an aesthetic of unobtrusive simplicity, beauty and timelessness.

Design that Finds Beauty in Purpose
Etude by Frédéric Forest

Born and raised in Annecy, the “Pearl of French Alps”, Frédéric Forest discovered his first love before he could even write: drawing.

This passion lead him to Paris to study design and took him around Europe, working for a host of luxury brands, before settling back into Parisian life where he started his own design studio, Forest & Giaconia, with interior and product designer Clémentine Giaconia.

However, it is indeed ‘drawing’ that he is best known for with a cult like following stretches across the globe; 160k followers (and counting) as @fredericforest on Instagram and over 2500 people tattooing his designs on their bodies — the ultimate sign of fandom.

For DITA, he spent time doing what he loves the most — drawing in his Parisian studio in the 7th arrondissement. The resulting etude — a minimalist study of beauty, refinement and restraint — serves as further inspiration for those already converted and the perfect introduction to Forest’s specific style for new fans alike.

DITAworld Talks

Interviews

Craft that Celebrates the Unseen
Bertrand Duchaufour

Expert perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour is a contradictory character. Having trained in Grasse, the world’s capital of perfume, and created scents for a host of influential brands over the last 30 years, his experience is almost unequalled.

Paris-based Duchaufour works with a library of the finest ingredients available to his craft but is inspired almost exclusively by the intangible. His works epitomise a bid for balance: that between the olfactive, intellectual experience of a scent and its physical path, its lifeline. Even his most discordant creations are evidence of an endless search for quiet harmony.

Duchaufour works with open eyes; his daily journeys of discovery resemble not a search for perfection or preciousness but a search for essence: for the absolutes of experience.

A teenage sweetheart first instilled in young Bertrand his love of scent. At 17 he moved to Paris and met a girl who wore Chanel No 19; she was an avid perfume collector and enthused passionately to him about fine fragrances. From this early romance bloomed Duchaufour’s career: he spent a few years as a chemist before his passion led him to Grasse, where he embarked upon a slow and steady exploration......

Craft that Celebrates the Unseen
Carl Craig - Kinetic Energy

Carl Craig wants you to tell him a joke. A few months ago, he tweeted as much and the responses were, according to the man himself, lackluster. One particular reply has stuck with Craig since then. It stated bluntly, “You got it wrong. You’re supposed to entertain us!”

Craig makes a face as he tells the story. It’s not quite frustration; more like disappointment, confusion that someone could think of a DJ as an entertainer — although Craig’s music has arguably been captivating club-goers since the early days of Detroit techno.

We are sitting in the lounge at the Soho House in Berlin, and Craig is eating lunch before his flight back to the States. He puts down his spoon before he explains because this, clearly, is important: “This is exactly the same thing as when you go to a club. They want you to give them energy so that they can have fun, but you have to give the DJ energy, too.”

It quickly becomes clear that for Carl Craig, everything, right down to our interview, is a mutual concession, an exchange. He opens up the most when I’ve given him a little something; a story, my opinion, personal examples rather than just straight up questions. Craig likes to joke that they don’t dance in Europe like they do in America but whatever the response, it is simply a response that Craig is after when he DJs: energy, clapping, excitement, dancing, cheering, moving. You might just call him a good listener — and he is — but Craig seems to know that that he’s at his best, musically and otherwise, when things are give and take.....

Culture that Transcends Convention

Duality ft. Sevdaliza
by Emmanuel Adjei

Iranian-born, Dutch-based experimental pop polymath Sevdaliza is impossible to pin down.

A haunting singer; evocative lyricist; and progressive visual artist who is best known for a distinctive sound and aesthetic that playfully subverts both expectations and genre. But even this definition feels reductive as this exclusive short film demonstrates.

For DITA, Sevdaliza worked with long-time creative collaborators — film director Emmanuel Adjei and co producer Mucky — to craft an audio-visual experience that is unlike anything you have seen before. The dual nature of light and form are presented in an alchemical context that explores what perfected craftsmanship and a rich imagination can manifest.

For DITA, Sevdaliza worked with long-time creative collaborators — film director Emmanuel Adjei and co producer Mucky — to craft an audio-visual experience that is unlike anything you have seen before. The dual nature of light and form are presented in an alchemical context that explores what perfected craftsmanship and a rich imagination can manifest.

Created to celebrate the launch of the brand new DITA dual lens. Meticulously engineered to harness the ever-changing properties of light, Rikton – Type 402 employs an innovative photochromic dual-lens construction for an unparalleled visual experience.

Craft that Celebrates the Unseen

Bushi
by Kate Cox

A contemporary dance-drama that pays cinematic homage to traditional Japanese theatre and the irrepressible spirit of female ‘bushi’ warriors — directed by Kate Cox and starring model-come-dancer Manami Kinoshita.

Courage and ferocity are woven together with modern choreography that journeys through the timeless beauty of a Japanese garden and onto the tatami mats of a traditional Japanese house.

Culture that Transcends Convention

Floating
by Stella Scott

The Icelandic fable of the ‘Seal Woman’ is reimagined with multidisciplinary artist and Íslenski Dansflokkurinn dancer Elín Signý Ragnarsdóttir taking an emotive final journey through the otherworldly natural beauty of an incomparable landscape.

London-based director Stella Scott — whose compelling style has pushed the possibilities of storytelling on the small screen for a host of luxury brands and style-defining publications — explores themes of freedom and escapism in this exclusive short film for DITA that is set to a forceful original score by composer Benjamin Stefanski aka Raffertie.

Culture that Transcends Convention

Light Beings
by Natasha Khan
(aka Bat for Lashes)

The mythical aura of daring and courageous individuals who take flight is explored in this cinematic short, written and directed by Natasha Khan — better known as award-winning singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Bat For Lashes.

A outré tale of attraction, starring Margaret Qualley and Jamie Strachan, in a story that is simultaneously familiar yet alien, and set to a haunting original score by Bat For Lashes and Bobby Krlic.