SOFA CLUB - 2022-2026
CREATIVE DIRECTION + BRAND STRATEGY

In 2021, Sofa Club was at a pivotal moment. The value-first model was flatlining and the category needed disrupting. The business had solid trade through their website but no real brand to speak of. DFS dominated the market with price-led advertising built on outdated content and trashy sales, while niche challengers like Loaf and Swyft hadn’t yet cracked the culturally-aware end of the market. Louis, the CEO, knew the business could grow further but needed a brand that could carry higher price points, justify retail expansion, and earn cultural attention rather than buy it.

The sofa had become the most-used product in the home post-pandemic, yet sofas were still sold like commodities. TikTok interiors content was exploding, reshaping how people styled their spaces, and the sofa had quietly become the backdrop to a generation’s lives. Yet Gen Z and Millennials had no interiors brand speaking their language. It was simple: treat sofas the way fashion treats clothes.

Coming from a fashion and culture background, I knew applying this thinking to a high-consideration, high-ticket furniture purchase was unproven territory. No one had done it. That was the point. And that became the mission: to bring fashion home.

I led a full brand repositioning over five years, building a team across brand, content, design and production. A brand built for people who treated home style like personal style: seasonal stories, cultural relevance, point of view. Rebuilding the visual identity from dated and functional to confident and tuned-in, with a design system that finally spoke to the right audience. Replatforming onto Shopify meant restructuring the product architecture so the range told a story rather than read as a price list, all backed by a brand promise the category hadn’t seen: stress-free sofa shopping, next-day delivery and free returns.

Then came embedding Sofa Club into culture through partnerships the sofa world never touched: Stormzy, Alex Iwobi, Red Bull and Daily Paper. Work that earned press rather than chased reach, and held a credible position DFS and Sofology couldn’t get close to. What started as a repositioning for one brand drove a cultural shift that reset an entire industry.

But beyond the brand work, the biggest win was building a team who grew into their talents with confidence. As Designer Georgia Zotka put it: “Faye, you have a real way of getting the best out of people. The impact you had on the team and the culture was clear every day, and you made a real difference to how people showed up and believed in themselves.”