Pia Malatesta

Pia Malatesta is a FIT-trained wardrobe stylist, set costumer and fashion consultant whose clients and credits include MTV, NBC, Saks Fifth Avenue, Kanye West, and Harley Davidson. Pia and I partnered up to create her official online portfolio, which needed to reflect her classic, on-trend perspective and also be easily, quickly updatable as she's primarily on the road hopping from gig to gig. Because Pia's work samples are highly visual--editorial fashion spreads, beauty campaigns, music videos, and commercials--my primary goal was to create a site design that was distinctive and sophisticated but wouldn't distract from her tear-sheets and video clips. A close second, goal-wise, was to ensure Pia and her boyfriend Finn could add to and edit the site at a moment's notice whenever their very busy schedules would allow. The new Pia-Malatesta.com runs on a Wordpress backend expanded by the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

Pia's new logo is based on one of Finn's sketched concepts. We knew we wanted to incorporate hangers in some way, but stay away from anything that would read as cliché or heavy-handed. The resulting branding is crisp, geometrical, and, of course, quite stylish. The black, powder blue, and pastel yellow palette communicate New York, LA, and Miami simultaneously.

Stylists, by trade, devote their time to creating looks based on their clients needs and dictations. It's perhaps because of this that their portfolios tend to be very minimal and lack personality. What I appreciate about working with Pia is her commitment to communicating her own aesthetic, which sets her far apart from her contemporaries. The new Pia-Malatesta.com proves that clean, classic design doesn't have to be at all boring or cookie-cutter.