Craft Brand Guidelines: Swedish Performance

Craft pioneered the technical base layer.

Craft is a lesson in function as a design language. A Swedish performance brand with technical roots in 1973 and the brand established in 1977 (in Borås), Craft built its reputation on a foundational innovation: the next-to-skin, moisture-wicking base layer — the “first layer” that transports sweat away from the skin.

Its brand identity is technical, function-first and Scandinavian — endurance-sport apparel for running, cross-country skiing, cycling and triathlon, built on a layered-performance philosophy and athlete-tested race kit, often in bold, high-visibility race colours.

(Honest notes: Craft is not an independent startup — it’s a brand of New Wave Group, a publicly listed Swedish apparel group. Its founding history (roots 1973, brand 1977, founder Anders Bengtsson) is best cited with a light hedge. And there’s no official brand hex, so the tones here are an unofficial interpretation.)

Craft lives in a Nordic-technical palette. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Craft’s identity is technical, cool and bold — a Nordic ink, a race red, an ice blue, a steel grey, and a snow. The palette pairs a Nordic ink with a bold race red and an ice blue — the register of Scandinavian sport, race kit and technical layers. It signals performance, function and Nordic clarity rather than lifestyle softness. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is a Nordic-technical palette signals function-first sport. Craft’s world is a cross-country ski trail and a race start. For designers, it is a reminder that a Nordic ink with a race red and an ice blue reads as technical and bold — right for a Scandinavian endurance brand. The takeaways: base on a cool Nordic ink; add a bold race colour; and treat any single hex as unofficial — using ink for small text so the red stays a race signal.

The register is a Nordic grotesque — clean and technical.

Craft’s identity carries a technical, clean, function-first spirit — base layers, race kit and Scandinavian rigour. A clean Nordic grotesque captures the mood: it is precise and athletic, the register of a race bib and a technical spec. Set in a Nordic-technical palette, the grotesque feels clean and technical — exactly the personality Craft carries. It is precise rather than decorative, mirroring engineered kit. (Craft’s real wordmark is a trademark we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact brand typeface is not ours to use.) Because the mark is not ours to use, the honest description is “a Nordic grotesque spirit,” shown here in a stand-in. The type behaves like the brand: technical, clean and function-first.

Craft stands for technical function.

Craft is a lesson in making function the identity. A Nordic-technical palette, a base-layer heritage and a function-first philosophy make performance the whole brand — technical, layered, athlete-tested. The function is the differentiator. The differentiator is a technical, function-first, Scandinavian identity.

For designers and brand-builders, Craft offers a clear takeaway: a functional innovation can anchor a brand for decades. The lessons: own a real innovation (the base layer); build a system around it (layering); and keep it athlete-tested. It is also a reminder to stay accurate: Craft is a New Wave Group brand (not independent), it’s Swedish, and the palette here is an unofficial interpretation. Craft made function the brand — proof that engineering can be the difference.

Keep Craft’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.