Build a bold, unexpected brand identity for a premium Atlanta barbershop rooted in two cities and one lion.
Role
Creative Direction · Brand Identity · Packaging · Advertising
Client
De León Barbershop · Atlanta, GA
Industry
Personal Care · Retail · Hospitality
Deliverables
Logo · Identity System · Uniforms · Signage · Product Line · Magazine Ads
Palette and type
#212121 · #C7661E · #658E59 · Korolev Compressed
He called for a second opinion on a logo he had already paid for.
Challenge
A groomer opening his first Atlanta shop, holding a logo he had already paid for. The mark had to hold at sign scale, on a product label and inside a room, and it had to read lion without drawing one.
Approach
Go back to the brief instead of repairing the artwork. Build the mane out of a beard and a moustache, cut the eyes down to two marks, then find the same silhouette in a Monstera leaf and grow the system from that one shape.
Outcome
A full identity: pattern, stationery, dimensional signage, uniforms, a retail grooming line with its own brand, and a magazine and poster campaign.
The brief · One line
Commissioned from another designer, paid for, and never used on anything. The brief was a lion's mane.
Same brief. A beard, a moustache and two eyes, and nothing else.
Alex De León, a master groomer from Miami opening his first shop in Atlanta, reached out to ask what I thought of a logo he had just commissioned from another designer. He had not put it on anything yet, which turned out to be lucky. This was never a rebrand. It was a kick start before the doors opened. His one directive was a bold icon built around a lion's mane. Everything else was mine to find.
The Monstera leaf answered the brief in a way no literal lion ever could. Its silhouette mirrors the mane. It gave us something unexpected, plantlike and slightly feral, and it landed perfectly with Alex, who happens to be a self-proclaimed botanist. The palette was born from the collision of two cities: Atlanta's grit and Miami's color, united by the beauty in a decaying landscape.
Three references, one silhouette. The lion, the leaf and the beard are all the same shape once you stop looking at what they are.
The finished lockup. The accent on the o is a leaf, which is the smallest place the whole idea shows up.
The mark broken into parts, then rebuilt. Rotate the beard four times and it becomes a rosette, and the rosette tiles.
Blind embossed, black on black. The pattern is meant to be found by hand before it is seen.
Korolev Compressed across three weights, and three values: #212121, #C7661E, #658E59. Atlanta grit, Miami color.
Stationery laid out with the tools it sits next to. The orange runs from the folder to the clippers on purpose.
Cards printed as a set rather than one design. Scissors, razor, brush, each one a different card, all the same system.
Orange edge painted on the stock. The leaf underneath is the reference, sitting there uncredited.
Testimonial
The moment Andrew showed me the logo, I knew he understood the shop the way I wanted people to feel it.
He shaped all of it, the uniforms, the storefront, the interior, the tone, even the music playing in the room. He gave the whole place a point of view. Alex De León, owner, De León Barbershop.
The line · Grooming
Mane Tame, set in a rule and signed by de León. A product brand that borrows the parent's credibility without wearing its face.
Close on the emboss. No ink, no color, just the leaf pressed into the board and the mane rising into frame.
The pack · Retail
Beard shampoo, body wash and a tin. The leaf reads as a black shape at the base of every bottle.
Retail bag with the leaf embossed white on white and the mane cut out of the base. Orange cord, because the shop is orange.
Mane Tame is Alex's own grooming line, sold from the shop floor. It borrows the leaf and almost nothing else, because a product on a shelf has to work without the room around it.
The leaf reads as a black shape at the base of every bottle. Embossed on the bag, cut out of the board, never explained.
The unexpected answer that, once seen, seems like the only one.
Tee, trousers, belt, watch, shears, shoes. Specified as a kit so a new barber looks like the shop on day one.
Orange high tops on white tile covered in cut hair. Every part of the frame is on brand and none of it is a logo.
Nobody reads the sign from this distance. The tee, the belt and the watch strap do the work instead.
Hand painted across the whole front, hours on the door, carved totems either side. Not a sign so much as a claim on the block.
Concrete, orange steel and a lot of plants. The palette is in the room before it is on anything printed.
The door rolls up and the shop opens onto the trees. The botanical idea was never only a graphic.
Full spread, one word, hand lettered. MEOW earns the lion without ever drawing one.
The poster. Brush lettering, a cap with the mark on it, and a joke confident enough to carry a whole campaign.
Free haircuts in Krog Street Tunnel. The uniform tee is the only branding in the frame.
Provide Atlanta. Alex gives free haircuts to the homeless of Atlanta in the Krog Street Tunnel. The uniform tee is the only branding in the frame and it is enough. It was worth building something that matched that character.
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