STEEZY’s clean packs are disrupted by Joy Studio’s hand-drawn marks

STEEZY is a Polish hair-styling brand that Mateusz Banaszek, founder of a Gdańsk-based barbershop, started with the educational platform Future Classic. The brief that reached Kraków-based Joy Studio asked for a complete identity, along with label design for three products – a styling cream, tonic and wave foam – but it widened over several meetings to take in the packaging and promotional material too. By the time Joy Studio came on board, the name was set – derived from the slang term ‘steez,’ a blend of style and ease – along with the products and the brand’s positioning lines. “The initial packaging specification had also been established: a white cylindrical PET bottle with a matte finish and a white dispenser,” explains STEEZY’s Creative Director Marta Bartkowiak. “The people behind STEEZY are some of the leading barbers and cosmetics manufacturers on the Polish scene, and both their work and their personal style often push the category forward,” Joy Studio’s Owner & Art Director Radek Sadlik tells us. “Because of that, we knew the brand couldn’t simply become another aesthetically pleasing grooming product.” “We wanted to avoid the familiar language of premium brands: overly minimal, lifestyle-driven identity,” Sadlik continues. “There is already a lot of beautifully designed minimal packaging on the market. For us, the more interesting question was: what happens if somebody takes that perfect package and starts drawing all over it?” A hand-drawn mark sits on each of the three packs. “Post-graffiti and tagging were important references, but we were equally interested in spontaneous handwriting, scratched surfaces, notebook drawings and the visual language of things that are altered by their users,” he adds. “It was less about reproducing graffiti and more about borrowing its energy, imperfection and sense of authorship.”