Q4
2019
Base Coat Nail Salon
Base Coat came to us when all they had was an ingenious idea. To open the world’s first non-toxic nail salon. A salon where staff and guests wouldn’t have to expose themselves to toxic chemicals and sacrifice their own personal health for the sake of beauty.
We started from square one. Letting research lead the way. We conducted interviews which informed our strategy and helped us craft a bulletproof brand foundation, identity, and web experience. From that strong base, we were able to help the company establish a national presence. Base Coat opened four flagship salons in Denver and Los Angeles, fifteen mini-salons inside of Nordstrom stores, and their products were distributed throughout Whole Foods nationwide. Their following spread like wildfire and the fandom was truly cult-like.
What We Did
- Consumer Research
- Naming
- Brand Identity
- Web Development
- Web Design
- Brand Activations
How We Did
We interviewed more than 800+ Base Coat clients to gain valuable insights that informed our approach to the brand strategy and web design. With that, we helped Base Coat become more than a nail salon. We helped evolve into a lifestyle brand. Additionally, we created a robust e-commerce experience, making it easier to get their products into their fans’ adoring hands.
Logo
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Brand Identity
Base Coat’s brand identity needed to reflect the innovative product line it represented. It needed to be clean. It needed to be modern. And it yearned to be as bold as the colors themselves.
We created an iconic, minimalist mark for Base Coat, the “XX”, representing ten fingers and ten toes. We then married it with a clean typeface to represent their clean ingredients. As Base Coat continued to grow, opening nail salons and venturing into new product lines, so too did the brand. We built upon the brand identity by layering in copy, iconography, and badges that reinforced the brand's missions and values.
Badge Designs
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Website/E-commerce
Through our consumer research, an insight emerged. Base Coat’s customers were bringing their own polishes into competitor’s salons. What we gleaned from that was Base Coat’s website shouldn’t be purely informational as they had previously thought. Instead, it needed to focus on e-commerce. We adapted our approach to sell all 120+ polish colors, and spa products, through a robust, secure, intuitive web experience.
Bath & Body Oil, Sugar Scrub, Cuticle Serum, Nail Polish
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Crewneck
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Merchandise
Our goal was to turn Base Coat into more than a nail salon brand, but a lifestyle brand. And it worked. Base Coat clients identified so strongly with the identity, mission, and philosophy, that they wanted to wear Base Coat on more than just their nails.
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