Eva Goicochea: Democratizing Design, Watches, and Sex – Well Made E5

Eva Goichochea’s clear, minimal aesthetic has established her reputation as a web designer and brand strategist for companies like Herschel Supply Co, This is Ground, and Everlane. And as a Squarespace Specialist, she builds websites for brands, while also building a couple brands of her own.

Eva is the co-founder of two physical product lines. Tinker is a kind of quirky company that's making build-your-own analog watches. Maude is a (pre-launch) modern sex company looking to disrupt the dated, often male-centric, world of condoms.

Eva calls herself a brand shepherd, and on this episode of Well Made, she talks to Stephan about how she uses her minimal style as a lens to tell the story of new brands, with a bit of character.

“I try to create something that’s very memorable, based on very concise messaging and clear images.”

As a Squarespace specialist, Eva realized that she's often condensing a founder's idea of their business to reach a point of clear, powerful messaging. Often that means pushing people to take risks and reevision their own brand.

From working larger brands like Everlane to her own startups Maude and Tinker, she finds herself acting as a brand shepherd. The aesthetics of Tinker, Everlane, and Maude are all minimal and modern much like Eva's, but it's not her personal aesthetic. It's important for her that she pushes the aesthetic of a brand, always for the sake of the brand and not her own taste. It's her die hard search for clarity is what makes her work so memorable.

“We just want to build a great watch. We don't want to change the world.”

When Eva and her co-founders decided to start a watch company, it was important to them that their brand not take itself too seriously, unlike many of their competitors in the space. They're not recreating the watch, they're just making a beautiful one, and so she and her three co-founders have only used their own money to fund the brand.

Her other brand, Maude, also has a sense of humor about itself, but it's no small venture. Eva and her three other (different) co-founders are channeling the early days of condoms with more fun and femininity. The hardest part has not been getting the idea or even coming up with the brand. The hardest part has been doing the research to find manufacturers making condoms. It's often an overlooked chapter in selling physical product, but after some investigation and negotiation, a lot of manufacturing can be narrowed down to a few factories — which is also the case for condoms. We're excited to see how the work pays off when Maude launches.

You can stay up-to-date with Maude on the brand's Instagram. Tinker Watches are shipping now and you can design and buy your own. And of course, if you need a strikingly beautiful, powerful website, Eva would be happy to help. You can hire her as a web designer, brand strategist or take her branding class, Digitally Cohesive. And you should definitely follow her personal Instagram.

Also mentioned on the show: