Hills, a Tesla brand built from scratch

Hills wood panels in walnut, ebony, maple and purple heart, laid on a rock in the California desert

Work

Case study

A Tesla brand we built from a blank page. The product, the name, the pictures, the store and the growth.

Brand: Real wood interiors for Tesla Model 3 & Y
Market: United States, direct to consumer
Our part: Everything, end to end

Result

Hills began as an idea and a Model 3. We designed the part, named the brand, shot it in the California desert, built the store and ran the ads. Tesla owners across the US ended up ordering hand-finished wood from a brand that did not exist before we drew it.

At peak, on our campaigns: $120Ka month
Return on ad spend, Google Ads: 3.2×
Average order value: $300+

Brand

A name, a mark, a voice and a box.

Final

The mark

An H whose bar climbs, like the line of a hill.

The wordmark rests on one letter. We tried the H with a flat bar, and tipped off its baseline, before settling on two square stems and a crossbar that rises from left to right.

The mark is filed with the USPTO, serial no. 98205371.

The palette

Eight colours, from pale sky to dark clay.

#DDE5E7
#5A6F81
#EADCCF
#FED7B5
#C2997A
#A2665B
#934F3F
#433D43

The voice

“We create an opportunity to showcase distinction in a world of sameness.”

Timeless. Elegant. Distinguished. Mysterious. Inaccessibly irresistible.

High end: not pretentious
Assured: not cocky
Timeless: not trend-based
Refined: not flashy

From the Hills brand voice guidelines: its purpose, its personality, and what it is and is not.

The box

Kraft, contour lines, and two cards inside.

A plain kraft box with the wordmark in white and a topographic print. Inside, a note from the founder, and a card on the trees Hills plants every year.

Yes, we care. The reason we don’t mention this information anywhere else is that we think it shouldn’t be a marketing message, but a new standard.

Product

From a scratched console to a part in six woods.

A · The problem
Tesla's piano-black console scratches the week you take delivery.

Fingerprints, dust, swirl marks. Owners hated it, and the covers on the market looked like aftermarket parts.
B · The sketch
We drew the part around the car.

The cabin was 3D scanned and every surface of the console modelled, so the cover follows the original to the millimetre. Slide the drawing to see what it became.
C · The fit
Cut to the car’s own lines.

Real veneer on a moulded base, tried in the car until it clipped on without a gap and without a single tool.
D · The part
Real wood, finished by hand.

A real veneer under a UV-protective coat: no reflection, no fingerprints, and a piece of wood no other car has.

Woods

Six woods, each sourced, matched and finished by hand.

Tesla Model 3 dashboard with the Hills walnut trim

2024 · Carbon

Then a carbon fibre line, for owners who wanted it darker.

Same fit, same clip-on install, a real carbon weave in matte or gloss, for the console and the dashboard.

Hills carbon fibre centre console on a Tesla Model Y

Shoot

We took the cars to the California desert.

Art direction and production by Melriver in the California desert. One brief: make wood feel at home in a Tesla.

Store

A store that moves like the product.

hillsmade.com ran on Shopify with a theme we designed and built from scratch. The site is offline today, so here is its motion, straight from our studio files.