AIRFEET REBOUND / BRAND BIBLE / V1.0
00 The one-page truth of the brand

Support your feet.
Support your pride.

A recovery-slide brand built for the people whose feet actually work for a living — athletes, nurses, welders, parents. Engineered to bring you back. Designed to wear your colors.

Category
Restorative recovery footwear
Moat
Team & institutional licensing
Personality
Earnest · Bold · No-BS
Document
Working draft — v1.0
01 Brand Story

Recovery isn't a luxury. It's the difference between showing up tomorrow and sitting it out.

Recovery footwear has always been sold as a treat — a soft "you deserve it" after the real work is done. We think that's backwards. Recovery is the work. It's what lets a nurse pull a second double, what keeps an offensive lineman on the field in Week 14, what gets a parent up for a 5:30 practice run.

AIRFEET began with a simple frustration: the best recovery slides on the market either felt like foam pool shoes or looked like medical devices. Nothing wore your pride. Nothing looked like it came from your locker room, your unit, your crew.

So we built the opposite. A slide engineered with rebound foam that actively works while you rest — increasing blood flow, reducing inflammation, easing the arch and plantar fascia. And a licensing platform that lets you wear the crest of your school, your team, your local, or your company — right on the strap.

You worked for the letters on your chest. You should get to wear them on your feet, too.

"We built AIRFEET for the ones who never sit down — even when they're sitting down."
⚠︎ Founder note — read before publishing
Two items to lock down before this story goes public: (1) the "proprietary rebound foam" claim needs a substantiation file — patent app, materials spec, or third-party impact-attenuation test — before it appears in ads (FTC substantiation rule). (2) The "37% less impact" number on the marketing site needs the same. Compliance-safe until then: "engineered rebound foam" and specific mechanism claims only.
02 Mission · Vision · Values

Mission

Give the hardest-working feet in the world a way to recover — and a way to show what they're working for.

Vision

Every locker room, nurse's station, and jobsite in America has a pair by the door.

The Promise

You'll feel it in minutes. You'll wear it with pride. And you'll never look like you're wearing "recovery shoes."

Core Values

V/01

Earn the step.

Every claim we make is backed by materials, testing, or the athletes who wear them. No spa-language. No wellness fog.

V/02

Wear the crest.

Your team, your school, your local, your shift — that's the identity we build around. We are always second on the shoe.

V/03

Built for backs of houses.

We design for the people whose work isn't glamorous. If it doesn't survive a hospital corridor or a construction trailer, it doesn't ship.

V/04

Recovery is respect.

Taking care of your body isn't soft — it's what pros do. We say that out loud, in the language of the people we serve.

03 Who we're for

We lead with collegiate athletics. Everything else follows the licensing.

"Everyone" is not a target. We prioritize the audience with the fastest path to distribution: NCAA programs and the fans who buy their gear. Every other persona expands from that foothold.

PRIMARY

Marcus, 20

D1 Football · Big Ten
  • Practices 5x/wk, lifts 4x/wk, walks campus daily
  • Plantar fasciitis flared sophomore fall
  • Follows Hyperice, uses Normatec at facility
  • Reps school on every social post

"If it feels like a real shoe and it's got my school on it, I'm wearing them off the plane."

SECONDARY

Alexis, 34

ICU Nurse · 3×12s/wk
  • On feet 12+ hours per shift, concrete floors
  • Chronic arch pain, tried Hoka Ora, OOFOS
  • Would gladly rep hospital or nursing school
  • Buys through Amazon or Zappos

"I want to slide these on the second I get home and feel my feet come back."

TERTIARY

Ray, 47

Foreman · IBEW Local 3
  • Steel-toe boots 10hrs/day, 6 days a week
  • Post-shift ritual: boots off in the driveway
  • Repping the local is a source of pride
  • Buys durable, hates fashion-first design

"Slap the local's number on 'em and I'll buy a pair for every apprentice in the shop."

04 Positioning
For [audience] // who [need] // AIRFEET is a [category] // that [key benefit] // unlike [competitor] // because [why us]

For the athletes, workers, and everyday people whose feet do the actual work, AIRFEET is a restorative recovery slide that actively speeds recovery while you wear the colors you're proud of. Unlike OOFOS or Adidas Adilette, we are engineered for measurable recovery and built as a licensed canvas — so your team, school, hospital, or local rides with you off the field, off the floor, and off the site.

Competitive Map

More Athletic ↑
↓ More Casual
Generic →
← Personalized
Nike Calm
Adidas Adilette
OOFOS
Birkenstock
Hoka Ora
Kane Revive
AIRFEET

Only brand playing in the top-right quadrant: athletic-performance meets deep personalization.

06 Color System

Neutral core so team colors always win. One accent that's unmistakably ours.

Because AIRFEET is a licensing canvas, the brand palette must recede when a co-brand steps forward. Ink and Paper carry 80% of every layout. Rebound Orange is our fingerprint — used sparingly, but always.

Core Palette

Ink
HEX #111111
RGB 17·17·17
CMYK 75·68·67·90
PMS BLACK 6 C
Paper
HEX #F5F1EA
RGB 245·241·234
CMYK 2·3·8·0
PMS 7527 C
Rebound Orange
HEX #FF4B1F
RGB 255·75·31
CMYK 0·84·92·0
PMS 172 C
Signal Amber
HEX #F1B23A
RGB 241·178·58
CMYK 4·32·88·0
PMS 1235 C

Grounding Palette — secondary, use sparingly

Field Green
HEX #0F5C3A
Category tag: performance
Court Navy
HEX #1B3A6B
Category tag: institutional
Bone
HEX #EDE7DC
Category tag: surfaces
Concrete
HEX #7a7364
Category tag: system copy

The 60 / 30 / 10 Rule

Every AIRFEET layout should read as: 60% Paper (breathing room), 30% Ink (structure & type), and 10% Rebound Orange (accent, never fill). Grounding colors substitute for Ink only when co-branding with team colors that clash.

PAPER · 60%
INK · 30%
10%
Contrast & accessibility
Ink on Paper = WCAG AAA. Rebound Orange on Paper passes AA for large type only (24px+). Never set body copy in Rebound Orange on Paper. Use Ink for body always.
07 Typography

Two families. One monospace signature. Zero decorative type.

DISPLAY & HEADLINE
Archivo (900, expanded)
Support the pride.

Google Font, open-source, industrial roots, wide range of weights and widths. Set at 900 with 125% width for headlines. Tight letter-spacing (-0.03em to -0.05em). All-caps is optional, sentence case is preferred.

SUB-HEADLINE & EDITORIAL
Archivo Narrow (600)
A recovery slide for people who don't sit down when they sit down.

Used for lead-ins, long headlines that need to wrap, and editorial pull-quotes. Never used for body copy under 15px.

BODY
Archivo (400/500)

Recovery footwear has always been sold as a treat — a soft "you deserve it" after the real work is done. We think that's backwards. Recovery is the work.

Body copy sits at 16–17px with 1.5–1.65 line-height. Max measure 68 characters. Never justified.

SIGNATURE / SYSTEM
JetBrains Mono (500)
SKU // AFR-SLD-01 · SIZE 10 · REBOUND / R2

Our secret weapon. Used for labels, meta, technical data, hangtags, sizing charts, and anything that should feel "engineered." Always all-caps, 0.14–0.24em letter-spacing.

Type Scale

140 / 900
Display XL
64 / 900
Display L
40 / 800
Headline
24 / 700
Sub-headline
17 / 400
Body — the workhorse text of the brand.
12 / 500
MONO CAPS — LABELS & META
08 Voice & Tone

We sound like a coach who respects you. Not a wellness app.

V/01

Earnest

We say what we mean. Zero winks, zero hedge words.

NOT: quirky
V/02

Confident

We stand behind the product. We name what it does.

NOT: cocky
V/03

Grounded

Locker-room language, not spa language. Direct, useful.

NOT: bro
V/04

Proud

We care about the people whose colors we carry.

NOT: sentimental

Do & Don't — real copy examples

DO Say this

"Slide 'em on. Feel your feet come back."

"Engineered rebound foam. Made for the people whose feet actually work."

"Rep the crest you earned."

"12 hours on concrete. 15 minutes to reset."

DON'T Not this

"Discover the magic of ultimate foot wellness ✨"

"Our revolutionary recovery technology unlocks your body's true potential."

"Rock your team pride with style!"

"The self-care your feet have been begging for."

09 Messaging Pillars & Taglines

Three things we say. In every order.

PILLAR 01

Actively Recover

Our foam works while you rest — improved blood flow, reduced arch strain, less inflammation. Not just "soft." Engineered.

PILLAR 02

Wear the Pride

Licensed with the schools, teams, hospitals, and locals you're already part of. Your identity, on your feet.

PILLAR 03

Built for the Real Grind

Nurses, athletes, tradespeople, parents. If your feet do work, we work for them.

Taglines & Signature Phrases

PRIMARY — brand-level
Support your feet.
Support your pride.
USE: hero, packaging, out-of-home
SECONDARY — product-level
Slide on. Rebound in.
USE: paid social, product page, hangtag
CATEGORY LINE
Recovery is respect.
USE: brand content, editorial, athlete quotes
LICENSING PROGRAM
Rep the crest.
USE: B2B decks, team partnership pages
10 The Brand in Use

How the system shows up — from box to billboard.

// HERO
AIRFEET.
AIRFEET / SLIDE 01 // JT SIGNATURE
Slide on.
Rebound.
SKU AFR-SLD-01 · SIZE 10 · MADE FOR THE GRIND
AIRFEET×NAVY BLUE U.
GO BLUE.
REBOUND IN.
LICENSED PARTNERREP THE CREST
// HEEL TAB DETAIL
AFR
@AIRFEET / 04.16
12 hours
on concrete.
15 minutes
to reset.
airfeet.com
// OOH / FLEET
AIRFEET.
What's next after this document
Real production assets to commission after brand sign-off: (1) product photography with actual slides + real athletes/workers, (2) 3–5 licensed team lockup templates, (3) e-comm PDP photo template, (4) hangtag/box dielines with a real printer, (5) short-form video style spec. This bible is the north star — the assets are the operating system.