Marshmallow
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Case study · 2024

Fold

A folding bicycle for the last two kilometres. We built the brand around the four seconds that actually sell it.

Client
Fold Cycles
Year
2024
Scope
Identity, product naming, configurator, site
Team
One designer, one design engineer
Constraint
Three frames, eleven finishes, one price

01 The brief

Nobody buys a folding bike unfolded.

Every competitor photographed the bicycle as a bicycle — three-quarter view, studio white, drop shadow. But the decision happens somewhere else: at the top of a stairwell, in a train vestibule, under a desk. The question is never is it a good bike. It is where does it go.

So the identity was built on the transition rather than the object. The wordmark folds. The site folds. The configurator shows you the packed footprint before it shows you the colour.

02 The system

The product photography brief was one line: never show it standing still. Marshmallow, project note

A mark with a hinge

The o in Fold carries the hinge: a soft crease that closes across states. Two logos, one motion — expanded for the site, folded for the head tube badge and the app icon.

Dimensions before decoration

The configurator opens on packed size in centimetres against a train seat, a car boot and a standard hallway. Finish selection comes third, after weight. Conversion follows the honest order.

Green that means go

A single mint accent marks every state that means the bike is ready — folded, in stock, in the basket. Everywhere else the palette stays out of the way, because eleven finishes need a neutral room.

  • Chalk · F6FBF7
  • Ready · 8FCBB4
  • Deep · 2F7F70
  • Pine · 123B34
  • Night · 0C2622

03 How it went

  1. Follow eleven commutes

    We rode with owners of competitor bikes for a week. Every one of them had measured a doorway, a luggage rack or a lift before buying.

  2. Make the fold the hero

    The site's first screen is the transition, not the product. Everything else in the identity was derived from that one move.

  3. Reorder the configurator

    Size, then weight, then finish. Putting colour last felt wrong in the workshop and right in testing — people stopped abandoning at step one.

  4. Ship the neutral room

    Eleven finishes only work if the interface around them is quiet. The palette we handed over spends its colour on states and leaves the product alone.

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