Brand Identity · Brand Environment
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
Recognition
Poster featured at Krog Street Tunnel
Overview
Alex De León, a master groomer from Miami opening his first shop in Atlanta, gave me one directive: 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.
The system built outward from the mark: stationery, uniforms, apparel, retail signage, and the full Mane Tame product line, Alex's in-house men's grooming brand with its own logo, packaging, and advertising. A poster from this project ended up on the walls of Krog Street Tunnel. Magazine ads followed.
The Mark · Logo Development
The unexpected answer that, once seen, seems like the only one.
Strategic Insight
The work was about turning a local barbershop into a destination brand. The mark had to hold up on exterior signage, on product labels, in the physical space, and across the experience of being in the chair, without losing its weight at any size.
The tone balances masculine confidence with refinement and an approachable edge, premium without being precious. The result functions as a complete identity system rather than a logo applied to things. The symbol leads, and everything else falls in behind it.
Identity · Stationery
Creative Direction
On the mark
The Monstera leaf as lion's mane is a single-image conceptual solution: one silhouette doing two jobs at once. That economy is what separates identity design from decoration.
On the color palette
Atlanta and Miami do not share a visual language by default. The palette was built to hold both: warm without being tropical, urban without being cold.
On Mane Tame
A product line within a service brand needs its own visual logic. Mane Tame shares the same DNA as De León but reads as its own thing, because it had to live on a shelf, not just in a shop.
On uniforms
A uniform is daily brand expression. Designed with the same intention as the logo, the shop floor becomes part of the brand system.
Beauty Product · In-house Product Line
A brand within a brand. Mane Tame, built to live on a shelf.
Style · Branding
The Style
Print · Advertising
Provide · Atlanta
Haircuts for the homeless. A brand built for all of Atlanta.
Project Impact
Identity
Full identity system
Retail
Mane Tame product line
Environment
Uniforms and signage
Advertising
Magazine and poster campaign
Recognition
Poster at Krog Street Tunnel
Testimonial
"The moment Andrew showed me the logo, I knew he understood the shop the way I wanted people to feel it. After that, I trusted him completely. 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]
Project Close
De León is what happens when the brief is honest and the creative response goes all the way. The botanical answer to a lion's mane brief is not the obvious move, but it is the right one, and the system built from it proves why. A full identity, a retail product line, uniforms, signage, and a wall at Krog Street Tunnel. Alex De León gives free haircuts to the homeless of Atlanta. It was worth building something that matched that character.