Laptop displaying a website with an image of a woman in a tan dress at the beach, standing with her arm raised, against a background of blue sky and ocean.

Noa & Co

Background

Noa & Co began with hair stylist and influencer Chenoa Brookins’ dream of creating sustainable hairstyling capes. Her initial product is a game-changer, taking a humble staple in the salon world and transforming it into something inspiring, luxurious, and eco-conscious. Unlike traditional nylon cutting capes, Noa & Co’s hairstyling capes are made from recovered ocean plastic from fishing nets and other waste, and meet numerous environmental standards and certifications. 

Chenoa painstakingly developed her product and had a clear mission in mind; however, she needed help creating her brand strategy and visual design. I was tapped at the inception of the brand to develop her idea into a defined strategy, including brand name and identity design, along with creating the key deliverables needed to launch - brand guidelines, business card, packaging, and initial website concept.

team

Ashley Austin, Creative Director,
Brand Strategy & Design
Chenoa Brookins, Founder

Deliverables

Brand Strategy
Brand Guidelines
Logo Design
Visual Identity
Website Design Concept

tools

Adobe Creative Suite

Two white packaging boxes with holes near the top, one with the name 'Elvite' and the other with 'Noa & Co,' placed against a soft pink background. A dried flower arrangement is positioned at the bottom left corner.
Logo with a white stylized fox tail and the text 'NOVA & CO' in white over a dark maroon background.

PHASE 1 | RESEARCH

Competitor & Market Research, Customer Profiles

In addition to brand investigation questions I provided to the founder, I conducted interviews with two stylists and one salon owner to get a sense of their needs and pain points, what brands they were currently using for salon supplies, and what brands they admired.

Direct and indirect competitor research proved that Chenoa’s idea was unique in the marketplace, and provided input on visual directions that would stand out.

A collage of portraits of diverse hairstylists working on clients, along with a profile description for independent stylists emphasizing creativity, diversity, eco-consciousness, and client experience.
Collage of images featuring salon owners, salon interior, and models. The right side includes text about salon owners' profiles, what they care about, and pain points.

An analysis of direct competitors showed an absence of eco-friendly capes in the market, and a clear opportunity to stand out with creative, aspirational product photography.

Comparison chart with logos of Betty Dain, FROMM, Cult + King, Simply Organic, and Highstrop, listing their strengths, weaknesses, brand voice, and product photography.

Competitive Analysis excerpt

Collage of images related to nature, beauty, and wellness. Top left features a beige sign with the logo 'AVEDA' and the tagline 'The Art and Science of Pure Flower and Plant Essences.' Top right shows flowers, almonds, and a beverage with text 'Know what we're made of.' Center shows a woman sitting in lush green foliage. Bottom left displays natural ingredients like shells, herbs, and salts. Bottom right features a woman with short, vibrant purple hair touching her ear.

Indirect Competitor Profiles

Salon Culture | Aveda | Cuyana

A visual survey of aspirational brands in the sustainable beauty space gave additional shape to the brand visual explorations.

The visual story began with a Brand Vision Board to aid in the design explorations. The product’s high environmental standards, combined with the relaxing vision of a high-end salon experience, were the inspiration for the nature elements, ocean shades and soothing textures that became the focal points of the board.

Collage of images with text overlays promoting a brand vision board. The images include a flower, coastal cliffs, ocean, parking lot, person holding green palm leaves, a woman in a yellow dress, stacks of bricks, pottery, blueberries, and abstract textures. Text overlays include words like "CLEAN BEAUTY," "COASTAL," "NATURE MEETS INNOVATION," "DREAMY," "THOUGHTFUL DESIGN," "SLOW LIVING," and a quote that says "do what is right not what is easy."

PHASE 2 | defining the brand

Brand Values & Naming

Keeping the research at hand as a guiding force, I worked closely with Chenoa to distill her brand values into a mission statement, through several variations, that felt right and summed up the company’s mission.

Naming the brand also went through multiple phases, starting with the identification of concept buckets (or areas of focus), followed by word generation, and finally editing and refining to the winning choice, a play on Chenoa’s childhood nickname, Noa. Other name development informed the current and future product lines.

A grid of cards with different categories of words, including nature, sensory, aspirational, dreamy, water, eponymous, and abstract words, with a central card labeled 'Concept Buckets'.
A plain beige background with centered text that says 'Selected Brand Name' in uppercase and light brown, and the brand name 'Noa & Co.' in lowercase and dark gray below it.
A presentation slide titled "Brand Values" listing key principles: Sustainability, Elevated Aesthetic, Kindness, Innovation, Design, Intentional, Community.

Color Palette Explorations

Initial color explorations mined a series of woodland textures, coastal nature, and calming neutrals. The final palette incorporated coastal blues offset by grounding, warm nuetrals.

Slide presentation titled 'Why is color important?' discussing brand recognition, emotional connection, longevity, and thoughtful repetition, with brief descriptions under each point.
A presentation slide about the color palette called 'Lichen Forest.' It describes the palette as earthy, unexpected, approachable, with primary colors of green, beige, and gray, and accent colors of peach and light green. The slide features a landscape photo of mountains and several images of natural elements, flowers, moss, and fabric swatches.
Color palette titled 'Pure Neutrals' featuring neutral and pastel shades, with images of a mushroom sculpture, pastel tiles, painted wall, and design samples.
A design board displaying color palette 3 named Coastal Warmth with shades of blue, brown, and beige. It includes photographs of a rocky coastal scene, a door with an arched frame, stacked firewood, a bicycle in front of a building, and a mountain.

PHASE 3 | VISUAL DESIGN

Logo Design, Visual Identity and Website Mockup

In the third phase, I explored several different logo directions, initially in sketch format before refining digitally. Five refined concepts were presented to the client in the selected color palette. An abstracted white-winged dove, common to coastal areas from Baja California to the Caribbean, inspired the final selection, paired with a slim elegant typeface.

Handwritten notes featuring a simple drawing of a plant branch on the left and a plant footprint on the right, with some legible words such as 'NOA' and 'vote' among the text.
Handwritten notes and sketches, including text, a bird, and decorative elements on white paper.
Handwritten notes on paper with the words "N.O.A" and "N.D.A" and illustrations of wings, a circle, and arrows.

Final Logomark

Primary Logo

Logo with a stylized leaf design above the text 'NOA & CO' on a black background.

Horizontal Logo

NO&A CO logo featuring stylized leaf design and text

Single-color Logo combinations

The image features a stylized logo with an abstract leaf-like design above the text 'NOA & CO' displayed four times, each in different pastel and muted background colors including dark taupe, beige, light gray, and deep teal.

Brand guidelines

Once the logo was selected, I extended the visual design to include business card, collateral, and a bespoke pattern element inspired by ocean waves and hair textures. All of these elements ultimately became part of our Brand Guidelines document, part of which is shown below. These guidelines are an instructional manual for Noa & Co. to use going forward.

A presentation of branding and design guidelines for NOA & CO, including logo variations, color palette, typography, pattern elements, photography style, and a table of contents.

Outcome

Starting the creative process at the very inception of the brand is a magical opportunity for me as a designer and thinker. The deep dive into brand strategy stretched me in new ways and allowed me to better define the steps in my brand development & ideation process.

Brand design serves as a guidepost for years to come and is truly valuable foundational work for any new-to-market brand. The content shown here provided a strong base for Noa & Co. to launch their product into the world.

Within 1 year of launch, Noa & Co. has since created additional cape styles and continues to build their landmark brand, featured in Aveda salons and used by superstar stylist Jonathan Van Ness.

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