weaving memory,
design + community


Projects

  1. She Was Lightnin’
  2. Gatekeeper Archive
  3. Black Joy Archive
  4. Therapy for Black Girls
  5. Lengths by Skye Laila
  6. KOISE Studios
  7. Ba&sh x Maryam Nassir Zadeh
  8. Ritual to the People
  9. A Few Minutes

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Lengths by Skye Laila: Brand Identity, Creative Direction & Ongoing Brand Development
Lengths by Skye Laila
2024 - Present

Lengths is a hair extensions brand built on a belief that has always been true in Black culture: hair is not a detail. It's language. It's transformation. It's the way you show up, take up space, and declare who you're becoming.

When founder Skye Laila came to me for a rebrand, the ask was a new visual identity. What we built together was a world.

The Brand World


The Lengths universe is rooted in the tension and poetry of Black aesthetic evolution — the subversion that has always existed within Black beauty culture, from the Black is Beautiful movement of the 1970s to Afrofuturism to the unapologetic maximalism of contemporary Black femme style. References ranged from vintage beauty ads and Naomi Campbell to the high-low elegance of Miu Miu and the bold specificity of rapper JT — not to create a mood board, but to define a philosophy: glam meets grit, softness meets statement, heritage meets now.

The resulting identity system — logo, typography, color palette, print materials, and social graphics — was designed to hold all of that contradiction without resolving it. Bold enough to stop a scroll. Considered enough to build loyalty.


*Images used in the mock grid are not original but pulled for inspiration for brand photoshoot and imagery*

The Muse

At the center of the Lengths world is a character we developed to anchor every creative decision: The Edgey Odd Princess. She lives in the liminal space between princess and punk, angel and alien, street and dream. She's a shapeshifter — every era she enters is deliberate, dramatic, and deeply personal. Never chasing trends. Bending them. She became the lens through which casting, wardrobe, glam direction, and shot composition were all evaluated.

The Photoshoot


As creative director, I led the full production of Lengths' inaugural promotional photoshoot — conceiving the visual concept, casting talent, directing wardrobe and glam, planning shot-by-shot styling (including custom Lengths logo stenciling on hair and two-model connectivity shots designed to emphasize the tactile, communal experience of the product), and coordinating the production crew from outreach through shoot day.

The four visual pillars guiding the shoot — Authenticity, Funkiness, Allure, and Otherworldliness — ensured the images captured every facet of the Edgey Odd Princess's world, giving the brand a campaign that felt both aspirational and genuinely specific.



Ongoing


This is a living project. A second photoshoot is in development, and we are currently designing custom packaging that incorporates brand-specific symbols and icons drawn from the identity system — extending the world of Lengths from the digital to the tactile. This is what it looks like when cultural research, brand strategy, and design practice move together.


©2025Always looking to craft new stories, new spaces, new memories.
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