Naoveau's owner and head stylist, Naomi, hired me to develop the name, branding, interior and website for her Seattle salon to ensure a strong and cohesive brand. Inspired by the century-old building’s original sculptural door handle, Nao’s huge collection of plants in the space and the elegant wavy hair that she’s perfected as a stylist, I dubbed the salon “Naoveau” to evoke the imagery of the coup de fouet curves of the Art Nouveau movement.

 

One of the most prevalent principals of Art Nouveau is the dichotomy between precise, calculated symmetry and organic sinuous nature. When I developed the hand lettered logotype, I obsessively fine tuned the perfectly reflected structure to keep it historically accurate. For the logomark, I created an “N” ambigram which can be turned upside while still maintaining the original mark.

 

The pattern of infinitely cascading faces was based on an unfinished sketch by Koloman Moser in the late 1800s. I wanted to create a wallpaper that clients would be mesmerized by when they’re stuck in the shampoo bowl, just staring at an otherwise blank ceiling.