A handmade hair accessories business I started at 17, where I learned how to build a brand by doing everything myself, from sourcing and sewing to content, selling, packaging, and delivery.
Mareana started as my own business when I was 17. I was not only designing for it. I was the one buying materials, sewing products, preparing orders, posting content, selling, packing, and handling delivery.
Because I was building the business myself, I had to learn how to make the brand feel clear, polished, and worth buying from. I was not creating visuals just to make them look nice. I was creating them to help the product look more trustworthy, more consistent, and more complete.
This was where I first learned how branding, content, and presentation affect how people see a product.
The visual direction for Mareana was shaped by the product itself. The identity needed to feel feminine, warm, and easy to recognize.
I used soft colors, playful layouts, and cute but structured visual elements to make the brand feel cohesive across posts, packaging, and customer touchpoints.
To make Mareana feel like a real brand instead of just a small shop, I developed branded visuals that created consistency across touchpoints. This included identity direction, mock-ups, color usage, presentation assets, and supporting brand materials.
I created product posters that made the accessories feel more polished and presentable online. These were designed to highlight the product clearly while keeping the branding soft, recognizable, and aligned with the rest of the business.
I also created a website direction for Mareana so the brand could exist beyond social media alone. The goal was to make the business feel more complete, more intentional, and easier to trust.
Beyond promotional graphics, I created the practical branded assets the business needed to operate. This included order-related visuals, payment and courier graphics, thank-you materials, and other startup support assets that made the customer experience feel more organized and branded.
Packaging was part of making Mareana feel more thoughtful and complete. I created branded packaging materials and inserts that helped the order feel more intentional from the moment it arrived.
Mareana was where I learned how to connect creativity with real business needs. Because I was doing both the product work and the brand work, I saw firsthand how visuals affect trust, presentation, and buying decisions.
This project taught me how to build with context. Not just how to make things look good, but how to make a brand feel complete across product, content, packaging, and customer experience.
It became the foundation for how I approach brand and content work now.
I create brand visuals, content systems, and customer-facing assets that help businesses feel clearer, more cohesive, and more ready to sell.