Olivia
A name, a business plan and complete freedom. I turned it into a beauty brand that never tells women how to look.
A name with no story attached
Olivia arrived as a name and a plan: an affordable beauty chain for every woman in Azerbaijan, whatever her budget. The owners already knew my work and gave me complete creative freedom.
The name was theirs and came with nothing behind it. Everything else, from the idea to the shop floor, had to be built from zero.
Beauty is a right, not a luxury
Olivia serves students and busy mums alike, and I didn’t want it to tell any of them how to look. So the platform became İstədiyin kimi ol!, be whoever you want to be.
The key word is ol, “be”, written with the looped L of the logo, so every line signs off with the brand.
Everything grows from the O
A looped l ties the letters into one friendly stroke, and the short Oli mark works as an app icon.
Beauty has a glow that belongs to each woman, so the O became a source of light. Rings of colour radiate from its centre, and every pattern in the brand grows from them.
Purple leads, backed by six brighter colours, Lufga for type and handwritten Blastone for signs. Social templates let the in house team post offers fast without breaking the look.
One word, endless campaigns
Ol works on its own, which is the whole point. Cəsarətli ol means be brave, Parlaq ol means be bright, and any campaign can grow from there.
The launch ran on portraits of real women with the rings glowing behind them, each in the colours she was wearing. Seasonal logos, from a heart for Valentine’s Day to semeni for Novruz, kept the brand moving through the year.
The brand on the shop floor
I worked with the interior designers on how the brand lives in the space. Category signs use Blastone, navigation follows the icon set, and some fittings echo the circles.
Then I trained the team, so the brand could keep growing with every new store without me in the room.
From one store to 56
The first store opened in Baku in December 2022, and by October 2023 there were 12. Today Olivia runs 56 stores in 13 cities, and İstədiyin kimi ol! is still the line it speaks with.
