It's 2019 and customers have seen enough "Wood & Whiskey" barbershop fit-outs to last a lifetime. It's dangerous for brands to go all-in on a trend but barbershops are uniquely challenged with both creating and chasing up-to-date styles for their customers. How do you set trends without being imprisoned by them?
Stanford Barbers first opened their doors in 2016 in Perth, Western Australia with a vintage look and a focus on high-quality haircuts. As they gradually replaced their all-wood interiors, the team at Stanford Barbers were left with an inconsistent brand and little other than their quality to differentiate them from the seven other barbershops that sat within a 1km radius.
Modular was challenged to create a brand system that gave the Stanford Barbers team room to create, experiment and express themselves while maintaining a cohesive and unified identity.
The solution was to create a flexible brand system that allowed for disparate and clashing styles to sit side-by-side. Now the team at Stanford Barbers can draw, paint, sticker, stamp and print over any of the brand materials, adding their own personality to their business cards, price lists and social media posts. The result is a barbershop with a fluid and ever-changing feel that's still instantly recognisable.
With its new brand, Stanford Barbers can change its look as often as its customers do.
The brand frame forms the foundation of all Stanford Barbers material. It’s made up of three elements, the Stanford Barbers logo, the grid, and the larger grid cells that block out space for elements like text or the Stanford Barbers logo. The brand frame scales responsively to fit the canvas it needs to fill.
Brand boosters are elements that can be added on to the Stanford Barbers brand frame to customise, personalise and elevate the Stanford Barbers experience.
These boosters can be drawings, stickers, stamps, paintings, overprints and more, depending on where the canvas is situated and its purpose.
Together with Stanford Barbers, we created space for local artists, designers and creators to contribute to the look of the store. Through a residency program, featured artists can create an internal wall mural and signage overlay, so that the store itself can change just as easily as the rest of the brand.
