Vada website

The Vada brand was launched in 2013 by Katie Caplener who serves as creative director and chief designer ever since. The name is a tribute to Caplener’s maternal grandmother; in fact both her grandmothers had a preference for jewelry. Vada jewelry is produced in small batches in Austin, Texas. Apart from original designer pieces Vada also sells carefully curated vintage jewelry. In 2020, the brand extended its scope to highbrow eyewear crafted in Japan, with each model displaying it-piece quality.

Katie Caplener describes her inspirations as ranging from ancient art to modern dance and from neoclassicism to New Wave. Equally eclectic is the appeal of the website. Appropriate for the business, the design is driven by fashion photography to which colorful backdrops are added that display a gradient and slowly change their color. As a third element, four different typefaces are used on the website that each have a distinct tone to them and in their combination underscore the magazine-like approach.

There is Matthieu Salvaggio’s spiky condensed roman Apoc (Blaze Type) and Berton Hasebe’s extended sans serif Druk Wide (Commercial Type), both used for display and headlines. Then there is Toshi Omagari’s Neue Haas Unica, Linotype’s tribute to Swiss style, used for the reading texts. And last but not least you will see the geometric grotesque Stratos, designed by Yoann Minet and released by Production Type, which is used for the navigation elements.

As Stratos is exclusively used in caps on this site, you won’t be able to see one of its most interesting features: while its capital letters are of condensed proportion, its minuscules display normal width and a strongly geometric flavor.