60 years of manufacturing told beautifully at a trade fair. But online it looked like separate pieces.
MTT — Manifattura Tessile Toscana — has been a pillar of Florentine textiles since 1961: loden, Prato cloths, boiled wool, fashion lines. It could tell its story beautifully in person, but the site made history, collections and sustainability look like three disconnected things. We used the brand identity as infrastructure, not as decoration: the grammar of the mark first, then a bilingual B2B site where everything fits back together. Design becoming identity, before it becomes product.
WHO MTT IS
Who MTT is.
Manifattura Tessile Toscana was founded in 1961 by Carlo Pacini and grew with a specialization in loden, going on to develop cloths, boiled wool and more fashion-oriented lines (structured plains and patterns). A solid reputation built on the quality of Made in Italy, a synthesis of craft and research. The model is typically B2B: credentials are required to reach the online catalog.
But there was a clear gap between the brand’s real value and its digital image: more than sixty years of history that online were not becoming a tool for international business.
THE CHALLENGE
“At a trade fair we told our story well. Online we did not.”
The client’s sentence captures the problem: “online we could not convey the same solidity: history, collections and sustainability ended up looking like separate pieces.” The challenge was not a cosmetic restyling, but a reconfiguration of the identity: making a company with a long, technical history legible without reducing it to generic storytelling, and without complicating access for people looking for collections and certifications.
With two delicate knots: the controlled B2B access, which risked becoming a barrier (“if we ask for trust before giving it, we lose contacts”), and sustainability, an asset that becomes noise without hierarchy — because buyers and brands are not looking for the same thing.
WHAT WE DID
The brand identity first, written down. Then the site.
We started from a scientific analysis based on Kapferer’s prism, to define the brand’s personality: modern, rooted in tradition, industrial. The rebrand led to a complete revision of the visual identity: a new logo born from a study of the weave — a pictogram that reworks the textile structure in its most essential form — and a precise visual grammar: loden green as the primary color, black and white for modern contrast, a defined typographic set.
That codification solves the typical problem of industrial brands: different materials that look as if different people made them. Online, consistency becomes perceived reliability — decisive for someone evaluating a supplier.
ADAM phase: Design
Brand identity (Kapferer’s prism)
Logo / palette / font system
Bilingual WordPress
THE ARCHITECTURE
The catalog as a “second step”, not as a barrier.
The invitation to request credentials for the portal stayed, but we framed it with content that builds context and desire before the request. We made discovering the collections immediate (Cotton and Linen, Cloths and Loden, Plains and patterns, Boiled wools) and connected it to the company’s life — collaborations, trade fairs, updates — treated not as filler but as proof of presence in the market. And the certifications (GRS, RWS, BCI, TENCEL™, ECOVERO™, European Flax™) brought to the front in an ordered, readable, comparable frame.
So the user first understands who MTT is and what principles it follows, and then decides whether to open an operational relationship: the controlled access does not read as a closed door, but as coherent selection.
ADAM phase: Design + Measure
Architecture of “collections + relationship”
Lead management
Sustainability put in hierarchy
—
BUILT
WHAT WE BUILT
A mark that can be repeated, a site that proves it.
01
A codified brand identity
Logo, loden green palette, type: rules of use that make the mark repeatable and consistent.
02
A bilingual B2B site (IT/EN)
On WordPress, designed for foreign markets.
03
Collections to the front
Loden, boiled wool, fashion lines: immediate discovery, history as the key to reading them.
04
Legible sustainability
Certifications (GRS, RWS, ECOVERO™…) in hierarchy, not piled up.
05
Catalog access + lead management
Credentials as a coherent step; commercial contacts traceable.
→ THE PRINCIPLE
Consistency as infrastructure
When everything speaks the same language, the brand becomes reliable.
THE IDEA CARRIED ALL THE WAY
Fabric as a language.
What we are proudest of is not a screen, it is an idea carried all the way: MTT’s history should not become an “about us” page to scroll past, but a key for reading the collections — from loden to boiled wool through to the more fashion-oriented lines. A manufacturer that has reinvented itself several times without losing its specialization, and that had to be visible in the digital work.
When a site manages that, it does not only sell meters of fabric: it makes a way of working credible, and lets buyers and designers imagine a collaboration. And loden green, declared as the primary color, we treated as a signal — not greenwashing — leaving the certifications to carry the technical side.
—
THE RESULTS
CLARITY, NOT SLOGANS
The most honest metric: how well people understand you.
Identity
Recognizable and repeatable
no more “a different company depending on the channel”: site, documents and presentations finally consistent.
Sustainability
More legible
fewer generic enquiries, more specific questions about traceability, supply chain and applications.
The catalog
As a relationship
whoever asks for credentials does so because they have already understood the collections and the positioning.
Foreign markets
Ready
a bilingual platform supporting the sales team, at trade fairs too.