ALACHROMA started as a collaboration with an independent hair artist whose work was miles ahead of anything she could name for herself. The challenge wasn't aesthetic. It was linguistic. She had a practice; she didn't yet have a word for it.
I coined one. ALA (of the) + CHROMA (color). A definition built into the letters. A way of saying: this artist works of the color itself. The client's identity is inside the name, and every future decision can be made against it.
Everything after — the logo, the color system, the typography, the website, the social voice, the coaching — grew out of that single etymology. When the founder is asked to describe what she does, she doesn't need a script. She has the word.
Completed 2022
Every piece of the brand has to pass this test: does it let the person in the chair define beauty on her own terms? If yes, it ships. If it tries to dictate — here's the aesthetic we want you to adopt — it goes back.
The brand gives people permission to treat self-expression as an art form. Individuality, taken seriously. It refuses the cosmetics-industry default of look like this to be beautiful.
The mark system — icon-only, wordmark, name-only, reversals for any background. Display face for the name, calm sans for everything else. Palette in the bold-but-tender zone: warm where you expect cool, saturated where you expect pastel.
She had the practice. She had Square for in-person payments. I built the online half — a way for clients to book her directly, a front door on the internet that books clients while she works. All of it wired into what she was already running.
What that actually means, in order:
She runs the artistry. The system runs the logistics. She stopped losing hours to DMs asking "can you fit me in Tuesday?"
Past launch, I stay. We meet one-on-one on the cadence her business needs — hers to set.
The work is: translating her business goals into brand decisions, making audience growth strategic instead of anxious, advising on marketing calls as they actually come up. Phone when she needs me. That's the form it takes.
This is the part a lot of brand studios skip. They deliver the identity and leave. Then the thing languishes because the founder doesn't have the muscles yet. We build those muscles together.
I named ALACHROMA. We built it together — logo, copy, site, coaching, the whole stack. None of which makes it mine. The founder is the source; the brand is the signal her practice produces. My role was scaffolding — building the surfaces well enough that her voice comes through cleanly, and stepping back when they do.
Individuality becomes your masterpiece. The line set over her own colour work, one artwork per palette.
Carousel spots and story assets — her clients, her work, shot in the suite.
Four-year anniversary showcase at AREA 15 — poster, Eventbrite, story and post.
Photography — pick in the curator.
Designed and built on Squarespace — picked for maintainability. She can update it herself, which was the whole point. Wrote the full copy for site, social, and marketing in her voice — we sat together until it sounded like her.
The public front: home, about, services, education, gallery. The tone stays loud and tender at the same time.
Live site screens — pick in the curator.
Booking flow screens — pick in the curator.
Vivid colour, precision cutting, shaved design. Fifteen years behind the chair. New clients start with a consultation.