HALE
A prestige skincare brand I conceived and art directed end to end. One barrier serum, a warm-clinical identity, product CGI, beauty editorial, packaging and a campaign on one line. Skin that holds the light.
HALE is a prestige skincare brand built from one insight: most beauty marketing promises transformation, but the truth people actually want is maintenance, skin that quietly stays well. So HALE sells a barrier, not a miracle. The Serum, ceramides and squalane in warm amber glass, and a brand that treats the daily routine as a small ceremony.
The identity runs on warm restraint: a wide Fraunces wordmark, a bone-and-umber palette with a single honey accent, debossed type on frosted glass. The campaign is shot the way good skin actually reads, bare faces in warm raking light, the product as proof rather than spectacle.
One line holds all of it. Skin that holds the light. Concept, identity, product design, packaging, key visuals, magazine, out-of-home, a social system and the launch page.
My role. Every layer of HALE is mine: I wrote the concept and the line, developed the identity, art directed and rendered the product CGI, designed the packaging, directed the beauty editorial, and carried the system through print, out-of-home, social and the launch page.
Art direction, end to end
From moodboard to launch film
The HALE build in order: direction gathered before any design, ten marks explored, the rules written down, then the film boarded and timed before production.
Research & direction
Warm clinical, decided early
The board set the temperature before the brand existed: skin in morning light, amber glass, bone and umber, one line of warmth through a clinical world. Every product and campaign frame after this traces back here.
Identity R&D
Finding the quiet mark
I took the identity through ten wordmark and symbol studies before committing to the final HALE lockup. The keeper is the most restrained of the set, a wide, warm wordmark that behaves the way the brand does: present in the room, never raising its voice.
The brand book
The rules of the light
The full guideline document: mark, construction, colour, type, usage. Warm clinical is a discipline, not a vibe, and the book is where it becomes repeatable.
Storyboards
Boarding the Serum film
The launch film boarded before production: macro serum surfaces, the drop, the ritual, the glow, closing on the line. Skin that holds the light.
Animatic
Timed like a ritual
Boards cut against temp score in Coveboard. Skincare pacing is patience: long holds, slow blooms, the end line arriving like an exhale.
Animatic cut in Coveboard ↗, the AI-integrated pre-production and editing platform I designed and built.
Identity
The product
HALE is one hero done completely: The Serum, a barrier treatment of ceramides and squalane in frosted amber glass. The range extends to a cream and a cleanser in the same quiet language: warm glass, debossed type, nothing shouting.
Skin, in the right light
The campaign is shot like skincare should feel: bare skin, warm raking light, calm faces. The product is the proof, not the hero. The hero is the feeling of skin you forget you're in.
Campaign
One line, every surface
Skin that holds the light. The line carries the whole brand, from a department-store lightbox to a magazine spread to the feed. Concept, identity, product, packaging, key visuals, out-of-home, social and the launch page.
Key visuals
Print + out of home
Social + launch
