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BACKGROUND
Unmarked emerged from a passion to revitalize Sydney's car culture, creating an unmatched show experience for enthusiasts and businesses.
Unmarked began with a deep desire to elevate Sydney's automotive culture, to provide an experience that was show-worthy and sorely missing for enthusiasts, builders, creators, and businesses.
Founded by myself and 2 friends, we filled a void in the local scene with Sydney’s finest modified cars and a community-focused atmosphere that curated the experience for every possible individual.
PROBLEM
A gap in supply, and a demand for more.
Knowing the community and being in it ourselves, we observed that Sydney was missing an exciting car show dedicated to the niche of highly modified street cars. Many of these owners, enthusiasts, and businesses wanted bigger events locally.
Speak to generations, old and new.
Cars have been around for a long time, with people ranging from 15 to 65+ who still continue their passion. How might we as an experience stand out amongst the car park meets, legacy exhibitions, and ever-growing pockets of car clubs?
OPPORTUNITY
Uniting a community
It’s common knowledge in the car scene that the good old days of shows are long gone. We seized the opportunity to unite Sydney's car community - offering a platform where excellence and inclusion drive connections between car builders, enthusiasts, content creators, and businesses.
Hands-on
& personal
A customer-centric approach was taken to ensure a personalized experience, setting a new standard for automotive events. From meeting directly with any shortlisted vendor, to curating applicants, planning layout and spacing to the millimetre, and participating in additional community events.
A lifestyle for everyone
Hosting a car show means being responsible for an experience that potentially defines key a moment for individuals. Overtime, this becomes a year on year event people look forward and work towards - and so each one should stand on its own distinctively, with unique merchandise, products, and experiences.
PROCESS
Inspired to stand out amongst the crowd
Taking design ques from global car brands, US/EU events, and fashion trends within the car world, I crafted a dynamic Identity blending the traditional and contemporary. Signifying the transforming landscape of Sydney’s automotive scene.
Collaboration & team-building
I worked closely with a small to medium size team of volunteers From streamers, to detailers, photographers, HR managers, strategists, finance, and more, to develop the posters, wayfinding, event layout, merchandise, and social media content, gathering feedback directly from an internal team connected to the community.
CHALLENGES
& LEARNINGS
Crunch
& deadlines
Preparing our debut exhibition in just three weeks—securing venues, creating the brand, and launching marketing efforts—required us to wear many hats and navigate significant stress. Consequently, this led to our second exhibition with 4 months of preparation. Appropriate time and team allocation was vital in executing a project of this scope.
Budgeting as
a bootstrap
With minimal capital for things across venue hire, collateral, merchandise, and advertising, this meant pre-purchasing was imperative. I developed pitch decks alongside my co-founder for vendors and budgeted for as little as we could to get the word out for attendees. Starting any business requires some form of capital, and turning it into reality requires ingenuity, compromise, and faith.
Design at scale is a lot
Designing brand collateral from posters, social media posts, videos, animations, wayfinding, merchandise, websites, EDMs, and so on, for a solo designer is quite daunting and stressful. Nevertheless I took the challenges of that, but in the second exhibition, I learned that sharing the vision and workload of the brand to others where my skills were not optimized for was essential to execute the event.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS
Beyond our expectations
Our debut exhibition, organized in just three weeks, attracted 1,000 attendees, 30 vehicles and 6 vendors, growing to 2,500 attendees, 70 vehicles, and 12 vendors in the following year.
Impact in the culture
Attended by automotive manufacturers, guest starring YouTuber ‘illiminate’, and showcasing THE-LOWDOWN's best vendor stall to date, we were recognized as one of Australia's top car shows by the community.
Merch sold out in hours
Our merchandise in the second event was sold out in less than 4 hours. Strategised during our debut for a second year release, building brand affiliation and capital to produce clothing unlike any other.
