Art Director — Miami Ad School · 2024

Manic
Panic

The color that fades when you do.

Manic Panic Classic High Voltage semi-permanent hair color in Hot Hot Pink

01 — Fact

Fact

Emotional instability often leads to impulsive self-expression. Bold changes can feel empowering, but permanent ones are often regretted — creating tension between control and consequence.

Bathroom-mirror home dye job in progress

02 — Insight

Insight

A popular coping mechanism for Gen Z is changing their hair color.

A breakup, a resignation, a bad season — the first thing that changes is the hair. It is the fastest, cheapest, most visible way to announce that something inside has shifted. The problem is that the announcement outlasts the feeling.

Split-dye teal and lilac hair
Green buzzcut Faded green and red grown-out dye Blue buzzcut in profile Purple hair, bedroom

03 — Idea

Idea

Position Manic Panic as an impermanent solution for those "going through it" — via playful, knowing copy and visuals that pop. Semi-permanent dye is not a compromise. It is the whole point: a feeling you can wear, and wash out.

Proceeds are donated to The Trevor Project, whose work sits exactly where this campaign does — with young people in the middle of a hard season.

Media: OOH, print and social across New York — bus shelters, wall murals, subway cars, transit digital and large-format screens.

The Endline

Don't let the past
pick your color.

One line, running across every execution. It works as a joke about roots and regrowth, and as the actual argument: what you did last season should not decide what you look like this one.

04 — Design

Visual System

A halftone cut-out portrait, thick glow outline, floating on a background of hair texture in the dye colour. Chunky five-point stars. The product pot bottom-left with the endline beside it. An all-caps condensed grotesque headline locked top-left, every time.

One colour per execution, taken straight off the pot — Electric Lizard, Cotton Candy Pink, Bad Boy Blue. The layout never moves. Only the colour and the line change.

Electric Lizard green key visual Cotton Candy Pink key visual Bad Boy Blue key visual

Execution 01 — Electric Lizard · Bus shelter

Change the color.
Keep the growth.

Growth is the thing you keep. The colour is the thing you don't.

Bus shelter in a plaza — Change the color. Keep the growth.

Execution 02 — Cotton Candy Pink · Wall mural

You gave your 2 weeks.
That's all
your hair needs.

A quitting joke on a hundred-foot wall. The notice period and the fade window happen to be the same length.

Long wall mural — You gave your 2 weeks. That's all your hair needs.

Execution 03 — Bad Boy Blue · Subway car

You finally let go
of your ex. No need
to hold on to the blue.

Placed in the car, at eye level, for the commute where people do their thinking.

Subway car interior — You finally let go of your ex. No need to hold on to the blue.

In support of

The Trevor Project

Proceeds from every pot sold through the campaign go to The Trevor Project. The dye washes out in two weeks. The support does not.

Don't let the past pick your color.

Gabriel Blue — Art Director · Miami Ad School · 2024