Branding + Website Design
Art directed a full rebrand and website redesign for Fairfax Guitar Studio, a private guitar and Ableton instruction studio in West Hollywood. I refreshed the entire visual identity, logo system, type, color, iconography, and brand voice, then carried it into a conversion-focused website and a kit of merch and street collateral, giving a one-on-one teaching business the swagger of a real music brand.
The concept centered on a custom wordmark: a liquid, psychedelic "Fairfax" lockup with a melting roller-coaster swash that nods to the energy of learning to play. I built it into a flexible logo system, the full wave-arch "Guitar Studio" lockup, a graffiti-style alternate, and a monogram pick badge, so the brand could flex from a polished header to a sticker scrawl without losing its identity.
I anchored the palette in high-voltage purple, acid green, and near-black, paired with a dramatic high-contrast serif and clean sans supporting type. To round out the system I designed a set of custom icons, a guitar-headstock star, pick badges, a music-note monogram, and a repeating Fairfax type pattern that became the brand’s signature texture across posters and packaging.
I documented it all in a brand book, "Master the Strings," "Play Confident," "Play Proud", covering logo usage, color, type, graphic elements, and voice so the studio had a clear system to grow into. The same language extended into tangible touchpoints: branded guitar picks, die-cut stickers ("First Fret, No Regrets"), and a wheat-pasted poster wall that made the studio feel like a fixture of the LA music scene.
For the website, I art directed and designed a bold, dark-mode experience built to convert lookers into students. A "Personalized Music Instruction" hero, a map-anchored "Guitar Lessons in West Hollywood" booking section with clear lesson pricing and a "Reserve Your Hour" CTA, and a "Real Students, Real Results" testimonial wall work together to build trust and drive scheduling.
The result is a cohesive brand that punches well above the scale of a solo studio, one flexible identity system spanning logo, merch, print, and web, designed so new lessons, promotions, and content can roll out while staying unmistakably Fairfax.