An original idea.
A world built around it.

The Climb is about continuing towards your own personal summit. That might be success, recovery from illness, a personal goal, or becoming closer to your true self and realising your potential.

I wanted the idea to hold the highs and lows of life: setbacks, restarts, uncertainty and growth, as well as achievement. That gave it a wider emotional territory than ambition alone, and a foundation that could connect very different kinds of work.

I developed the brand through reflection, cultural and visual research, and exploration of psychology, identity, resilience and human potential. My marketing and psychological studies background helped me connect the emotional idea with questions about audience, relevance and value.

For the Purpose Finder concept, my own experience of changing direction became an initial problem hypothesis. Conversations with peers about losing their spark or not knowing what to pursue helped sharpen it. I used those early qualitative signals to sharpen the audience, the language of the problem and the offer to test.

The resulting foundation sets out the vision, mission, personality, tone, imagery and brand architecture. The Climb is the overarching idea; TOLU ID is my artist identity; music, editorial content, apparel, tools and experiences are ways to make it tangible.

I developed a visual language that could move between a website, a garment, a presentation and a piece of content without losing the idea behind the brand.

The identity explores the climber within the wordmark, a standalone climbing symbol, motion-treated typography and mountain imagery. I directed and refined image and graphic concepts through repeated visual iteration, including AI-assisted exploration, making decisions about composition, contrast, scale and how the artwork would work in context.

The website imagery uses cinematic landscapes, restrained colour and large ghost typography. The apparel concepts bring that same sense of movement into tonal black and charcoal. I also considered social crops, banners, icon sizes and a consistent way for future posts and videos to look.

The work involved selecting and refining, as much as generating options. For the cap, I chose the climber treatment from three front-mark explorations. For the first shirt, I kept the design focused: a motion wordmark on the front and a clean back.

I directed and built The Climb website in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, moving from visual references and image concepts into a working digital experience.

The information architecture brings Music, Shop, Events and The View From Here into one place, with About and Contact supporting the wider story. I worked through desktop and mobile versions, navigation, artwork, page structure and copy, repeatedly comparing the build with the intended design.

The View From Here gives the brand an editorial voice through thoughts, experiences and lessons from the journey. It also gives the site a reason for people to return, alongside new music, future drops and events.

The homepage presents a newsletter sign-up alongside the brand idea. Music has its own page with the Maria tribute, while Shop and Events provide space for future activity. The site provides a foundation for audience development and a place to introduce the next release, product or experience.

I explored two different ways to turn the brand into products: clothing that carries the identity, and a practical digital offer that helps someone work out their next direction.

The shirt concept uses a dark-grey motion wordmark on a black tee. The cap exploration tests a climber symbol, wordmark and ascent monogram, with a mountain side patch. I then moved into questions of print-ready artwork, vector versus raster effects, garment blanks, embroidery detail and sampling.

My approach was to make a piece for myself first, test it and improve it before buying stock. I investigated local prototype printing, including an €18 shirt-sample option, and explored small-batch production to limit inventory risk. That keeps the first test affordable and lets the physical product inform the next design decision.

The Purpose Finder is an early digital-product concept for people who feel stuck or are navigating a quarter-life transition. The proposed offer helps them explore their strengths, interests, values and possible paths, then turn that reflection into a practical direction.

I explored a 30-day format and the relationship between story, trust and the offer. I also chose to build the credibility of The Climb before launching it. The commercial question is whether a specific audience will find the framework useful enough to use and pay for, which remains to be tested.

Music and performance are central to The Climb. They let me communicate something emotionally and make an abstract idea memorable.

For my final MSc presentation at the University of Galway, I created a narrative around camps, ascents and a summit. I designed the visual presentation, told the story of the year and finished with a four-song set, including original material and my reworking of The Climb.

This was the first public expression of the idea: narrative, design, public speaking and performance brought together as one experience. I have also explored how future experiences could bring together music, DJing, storytelling and community. The presentation provides a concrete starting point for that wider event direction.

The recordings below show the presentation and live performance itself. They are an opportunity to see how I shape an idea for a room, hold attention and move between communication formats.

The wider business idea is that each part can create a reason to discover and return to the others. Someone might hear a song, read an article, join the mailing list, identify with a garment or attend an experience. The website connects those entry points.

I considered how music and editorial content could build familiarity, how limited clothing drops might test demand, how a digital framework could solve a specific problem, and how live experiences could deepen the connection. The commercial model is being developed around those connections, with demand testing shaping the next investment.

I also developed a multidisciplinary bursary proposal to articulate the practice, its creative ambitions and the resources needed to progress it. That work required me to turn a broad vision into a clearer development plan.

The next stage is focused testing: refine the first physical sample, keep producing and sharing the creative work, understand what people respond to and validate the digital-product offer. The aim is to build depth around a coherent idea, with evidence guiding where it expands.