Derma — Brand Identity Packet
Derma
Brand Identity Packet
Confidential — Internal Use
2026
The Art of Athletics

Derma
Identity

A brand built on the feeling of nostalgia,
expressed through the language of sport.

Knoxville, Tennessee · Est. 2024
For the storytelling collaborator
A note for the collaborator

This document is not a mood board. It is a transmission — an attempt to put into language something that is more often felt than explained. Derma is being built from a place of genuine experience, genuine memory, and genuine belief that what people wear can carry weight beyond function. Read it slowly.

01 — The Origin

Where this
began

A grandfather's hand. A small boy's hand inside it. The streets of Athens.

They walked to a pitch — not drove, walked — passing people, storefronts, strangers with stories. Soccer was the destination, but the journey was the education. This is where Stavros Nikolaou learned what the world looks like when you pay attention to it.

That memory is the seed of everything Derma is.

Nostalgia is not a memory.
It is a feeling — and it lives in objects, in textures, in the thing you wore the day something mattered.
· · ·
I
Athens, as a boy
The game as a lens. Watching the world through pitches, streets, and people met along the way.
II
Three countries, many states
A professional career that crossed borders and cultures — each place absorbed, each experience carried forward.
III
Knoxville, at 28
Now coaching, designing, building. Trying to pass the feeling forward — to kids, to clients, through every piece made.

Soccer has been the lens through which I have learned the world. I want to fill that space with something beautiful — and ensure it stays that way for future generations.

Stavros Zarokostas — Founder, Derma
02 — The Essence

What we are
really about

Not a uniform company. A feeling company. The uniforms are just how we deliver the feeling.

Soccer has been the lens through which Stavros learned what life is. Every friendship, every culture absorbed, every place visited that he never expected to visit — all of it came through the game.

Derma is built on the belief that the things we wear can carry that weight. A well-made kit can mark a season of a young player's life. A piece of apparel worn during something meaningful becomes part of that memory. The object and the moment become inseparable.

This is not an abstract philosophy. It is the lived experience behind every decision the brand makes.

The Core Belief
Nostalgia as
sensation
We are not chasing nostalgia as a style or trend. We are reaching for the actual feeling — the ache of something beautiful that has passed, made present again through an object of quality and intention.
The Shift
From technical
to meaningful
Derma began as a compression recovery brand. Through that chapter, something clarified: the real passion lives in emotional expression through design. That is now the soul of the brand. Recovery and compression remain in the catalogue — but they are not the story.
The Art of Athletics
Derma · Knoxville · Est. 2024
03 — Voice & Tone

How we
speak

Every word should feel like it was chosen. Nothing filler. Nothing performative.

We sound like
Quiet confidence
We do not shout. We do not need to. The work speaks — and when we do speak, we speak with intention. Brief. Exact. Resonant.
We feel like
A person, not
a brand
Because this actually is a person. Stavros. His experience, his memory, his belief. The brand voice carries a human being behind it — with a life that informed every choice.
We never sound like
Generic
sportswear
No "elevate your game." No "built for champions." No empty performance language. That world exists. Derma is not in it.
Minimal in words. Maximum in meaning.
Vocabulary we own
Memory  ·  Feeling  ·  Intention  ·  Craft
Quiet  ·  Considered  ·  Meaningful  ·  Earned
European  ·  Minimal  ·  Precise  ·  Human
Nostalgia  ·  Resonant  ·  Beautiful
Vocabulary we avoid
Innovative  ·  Disruptive  ·  Premium (overused)
Next-level  ·  Game-changing  ·  Elevate
Best-in-class  ·  Cutting-edge  ·  Unlock
Champion  ·  Hustle  ·  Grind
04 — Visual Identity

The visual
language

Color Palette
Pitch Black
Ink
Carbon
Parchment
Gold
Gold Light
Chrome
Greek Olive
Primary
Black and parchment white form the foundation. High contrast. Deliberate. Rooted in print and European design tradition.
Accent
Gold is used sparingly — only where emphasis is truly earned. It should feel like a reward, not a pattern. Chrome offers a cooler, quieter alternative.
Signature
Greek olive — dark, earthy, rooted. Not a trend color. The color of old hills, old groves, old culture. It appears as a full-bleed moment: a pause in the document, the way a memory surfaces unexpectedly.
· · ·
Typography

A note on fonts: Derma's previous primary font was Neue Einstellung — a geometric Swiss sans-serif, clean and modern. After seeing this document, the decision was made to transition to Cormorant Garamond as the primary display face. The reasoning: Neue Einstellung reads cold and contemporary, built for screens and tech. Cormorant Garamond reads warm, literary, and European — like something printed in a small Florentine atelier. For a brand built on nostalgia and feeling, it is the more honest choice. Neue Einstellung may still appear in digital UI contexts where a neutral sans is needed, but it no longer defines the brand's character.

Display & Headlines — Cormorant Garamond Light 300 · Replaces Neue Einstellung as primary brand face
The Art of
Athletics
Subheads & Editorial Pull — Cormorant Garamond Regular 400 · Used for section intros, chapter titles, longer display lines
Where memory becomes
expression.
Body Copy — Questrial · A clean, neutral sans. Warm geometry. Reads comfortably at length without competing with the serif.
Derma is a sport-luxury apparel brand rooted in the belief that the things we wear can carry meaning. Not just performance. Not just aesthetics. Meaning — the kind that stays with you long after the season ends.
Labels, Codes & Metadata — DM Mono Light 300 · Used for section numbers, tags, dates, product codes. Keeps utilitarian text from feeling corporate.
DERMA · THE ART OF ATHLETICS · 2026
Font Decision Summary
Role
Font
Weight
Replaces
Display / Hero
Cormorant Garamond
Light 300
Neue Einstellung
Subhead / Editorial
Cormorant Garamond Italic
Regular 400
Neue Einstellung
Body Copy
Questrial
Regular 400
New addition
Labels / Tags
DM Mono
Light 300
New addition
05 — Aesthetic References

Brands we
learn from

These are not brands we copy. They are brands that have solved a problem Derma is also solving — and solved it exceptionally.

Aimé Leon Dore
Nostalgia as brand identity. Sport as culture. Emotional warmth. Memory made aesthetic.
ASRV
Technical precision with luxury finish. Performance credibility that doesn't compromise on aesthetics.
Satisfy Running
Art meets athletics. Movement as meaning. Technical function wrapped in poetic intention.
Augusta National
Restraint as prestige. Timeless over trendy. The confidence of a brand that never needs to explain itself.
Rolex
Objects that hold emotional weight. Craft that outlasts the moment. The heirloom standard.
What ALD does for New York streetwear,
Derma wants to do for soccer culture.
06 — Design Principles

How we
decide

These are not aesthetic rules. They are the filters every decision passes through.

Intentional
over decorative
Every design element has a reason. If we cannot articulate why something is there, it does not belong. Decoration without purpose is noise. We make no noise.
Minimal
luxury
Luxury is not defined by excess. It is defined by the quality of what remains after everything unnecessary has been removed. European football culture understood this. We carry it forward.
Emotionally
resonant
A uniform should not just fit. It should mean something to the person wearing it. The goal is that years from now, someone holds that jersey and feels something. That is the standard.
Nostalgic,
not retro
We are not making throwbacks. We are not chasing vintage. We are reaching for a feeling — the sensation of something precious — expressed through the visual language of now.
Human
at the center
There is a real person behind this brand with a real story. The brand should always feel like it was made by someone who has lived something — not generated by a committee optimizing for a market.
07 — What We Make

The three
pillars

Pillar One
Uniforms
Full-service kit programs for soccer organizations, academies, and clubs. From design through manufacturing and delivery. This is where the story is most directly told — a team's identity, held in a garment.
Pillar Two
Activewear
Training pieces, lifestyle apparel, and performance wear designed with the same intentionality as the kits. Nothing generic. Every piece considered. The standard does not change because it is Tuesday training.
Pillar Three
Lifestyle
Pieces that exist beyond the pitch. Quarter zips, fleeces, bags. Items that carry the Derma sensibility into daily life — quiet, refined, meaningful. For the player and the person they become.

Recovery and compression gear remain part of the catalogue — quality compression, thoughtfully offered. But this is not the soul of the brand. The soul is expression. The soul is the feeling a kid gets when they pull on a kit that was made for them, with care, with intention, by someone who understands what it means to belong to a team.

"It took me a while to get here. But this is what I am passionate about. Making things that mean something."

Stavros Zarokostas
Derma