I unleashed The Collar Club’s full potential.

At the corner of Santa Monica and La Cienega, Paul Leonard was bringing an extravagant vision to life: a luxury pet-care destination where grooming, coffee and social life belonged to the same world. I worked one-on-one with him to help navigate the relaunch, unite the brands and bring that world into a new West Hollywood flagship.

The Collar Club brought together Collar & Comb, Collar & Foam and a social-club experience centered on pets and their people. Each part needed its own appeal and a clear relationship to the others. My work connected the owner’s ambition with the language, imagery, digital experiences and everyday materials that would help people understand it. The assignment became a wonderfully unruly combination of brand architecture, hospitality, entertainment and getting a business open.

I helped mold those separate identities into a cohesive personality: ribald humor, a near-comical commitment to opulence and an unmistakable high-brow/low-brow appeal. In this universe, a dog could be treated like royalty and a coffee advertisement could behave like a beautifully dressed troublemaker.

I brought that personality into branding, advertising, storefront graphics and social content. The café’s Bitches Love Bubbles creative turned a familiar pet-world double meaning into an invitation for coffee, cocktails and conversation. Cheeky sidewalk messaging gave the brand a voice on the street. Gold, pink, playful illustration and theatrical excess made the work feel at home in West Hollywood.

The humor had a practical job. I wanted people to notice, get the joke and remember the place. Every surface could carry a little of that personality, from a window vinyl to a social-media frame.

I redesigned three websites so the umbrella brand, grooming business and café could tell a connected story. I worked across copy, visual presentation and mobile layouts, giving each business a distinct front door into the same larger experience. I also helped the owner navigate the practical demands of maintaining and developing that digital presence.

Beyond the websites, I produced menus, window vinyls, branded merchandise, digital advertising and social videos. I photographed pets and food, moving between a dog’s expression and the irresistible detail of a café sandwich. Those original images gave the brand a tangible connection to what customers could actually encounter there.

I wanted the transition from discovering the brand online to walking through the door to feel deliberate. The menu, the window and the website all had different jobs; I made them sound and look as though they belonged to the same gloriously over-the-top place.

I managed the brands’ social-media pages, handled press relations and helped shape events and collaborations that could introduce the business to new audiences. I set up brand collaborations with celebrities including Lisa Vanderpump, connecting the flagship’s personality with people who already occupied the worlds of pets, hospitality and West Hollywood.

The story also needed to work for journalists. I helped explain what made this combination of grooming, café culture and extravagant hospitality worth covering. The project’s press portfolio includes Los Angeles Times coverage and a Sprudge feature on Collar & Foam—different publications finding different ways into the same unusual business.

I paired that storytelling with the daily mechanics of visibility: Google and Yelp advertising, social publishing and DoorDash oversight. A beautiful brand still needed to be found, understood and used. I worked across those points of discovery, keeping the creative connected to the business of bringing people in.

Generative AI was integral to how I expanded the brand’s creative world. I used it to amplify the humor, heighten the extravagance and move quickly from a ridiculous idea to a finished piece of content. Dogs could become glamorous characters, cinematic accomplices or the stars of miniature advertising spectacles. The brand gave me permission to be mischievous; AI gave me room to make far more of it.

I combined that freedom with my work in design, writing, animation, video and audio. It let me produce a much broader range of creative while keeping the direction recognizable. I could explore variations, develop a visual joke and carry it into a social video without needing an entire production studio for every new idea.

Behind the scenes, I used AI for analytics reports, vendor sourcing, research and the countless questions that come with relaunching a business. It expanded both the visible creative and the quieter problem-solving that supported it.

My involvement stretched into the physical, unglamorous reality of making the flagship happen. I documented construction and behind-the-scenes work, helped shape the vision and took on practical tasks as they arose. When construction debris needed clearing or a floor needed cleaning, I picked up a mop. I was invested in the place becoming real.

That is what made the engagement so expansive. I could develop a brand idea, write the copy, photograph the product, build the page, produce the video, coordinate the publicity and help solve the next operational problem. The creative work stayed close to the people trying to make the business function.

I helped give an ambitious collection of businesses one expressive identity and a substantial body of work to carry it: three redesigned websites, original photography, films, menus, merchandise, storefront graphics, advertising and press materials. I brought imagination to the vision and follow-through to the launch. The result was a brand with enough personality to make even a dog’s haircut feel like an event.