Designing Identity, Scaling Experience

Joshua Leonard has spent his career navigating the richly textured world where brand identity meets physical retail. In his current role overseeing global store design and development for Mammoth Brands, he focuses on creativity, strategy and execution.

For Leonard, his past year has been a memorable one. Harry’s, the company’s flagship brand, underwent a significant refresh and the organization reintroduced itself to the world under a new name—Mammoth Brands—reflecting its scale and breadth as a multibrand CPG company.

“Harry’s is everywhere our millions of customers are and have expanded into categories like body, hair and skin to become one of the most loved men’s grooming experiences,” Leonard says. “My team has been helping shepherd the brand through that growth journey for years—expanding our shelf space, finding creative ways to build and design around growing categories and strategic merchandising.”

So, 13 years after its founding, Harry’s has grown into so much more than an online razor brand.

“At Harry’s, we’ve been really intentional about creating a more connected portfolio,” Leonard explains. “This year’s brand refresh enables us to work under one visual language, we’re able to scale more efficiently, extend into new categories and focus on the design details that communicate what makes each product unique.”

With that in mind, now more than ever, the aisles are packed with new, emerging brands alongside well-established “go-to” names.

“We’re fortunate to have earned that trusted space, and this refresh really solidifies that standing,” Leonard shares. “Our consistent use of Harry’s Blue makes the brand instantly recognizable across categories and allows us to create shared, cross-category moments in-store that help educate shoppers and connect the full portfolio.”

With this unified approach, the brand can use a mix of design elements—including materials, structure and storytelling—to bring the product benefits to life and make it clear what sets it apart.

“Our growth into a total men’s grooming brand was a big driving factor behind the brand refresh—our customers love us for all the steps of their routine—body, hair, skin, fragrance shave—and we wanted our packaging to have a consistent look and feel across categories,” he explains. “Whether you’re shopping in the shave or body care aisle, you should see our products and instantly know it’s Harry’s.”

“Our core principles haven’t changed; they’ve always been about delivering exceptional quality at a great value and staying true to who we are as a brand,” Leonard says. “What’s evolved is how we’re communicating those values in retail. We’ve refined our visual identity to feel brighter, more confident, and more established, ensuring we maintain visibility in an increasingly competitive landscape.”

That philosophy became especially important during the rollout of Harry’s Plus, the most significant product launch in Harry’s history. A decade in development, the new shave system demanded a retail presence that immediately telegraphed innovation.

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To accomplish this, Leonard and his team crafted a retail experience that distinguishes the product from the original line while keeping it anchored in brand trust.

“For a launch this significant, we wanted it to feel like a genuine step-change,” he notes. “Every element was intentional. In a retail environment, the display had to stop people in their tracks.”

The rebrand also gives the company an opportunity to both deepen its connection with core customers and attract new ones who may not have discovered it yet.

“We’re also using this moment to take creative risks and break away from the ‘sea of sameness’ that dominates most retail aisles,” Leonard shares. “One of the best parts about where we are now is that people know who Harry’s is. That recognition gives us a new challenge—to keep pushing ourselves and staying ahead of the competition. It’s a good problem to have.”

He is especially excited about the internal collaboration that comes along with being part of a family of category-disrupting brands under Mammoth Brands. Across the portfolio, teams share insights, approaches and creative problem-solving in ways that accelerate innovation.

“We’ve nurtured a culture of knowledge sharing,” he shares. “The playbook we developed with Harry’s continues to shape how we think about design, retail execution, and the overall customer experience across the portfolio.”

Store design, he emphasizes, remains highly individual to each brand.

“A big part of our ethos is preserving brand DNA,” he explains. “Our job is to build in-person experiences that reflect the identity of each brand. That individuality matters.”

Leonard’s leadership and execution have not gone unnoticed by the partners he and his team work with.

“We have had the opportunity to partner with Joshua on several successful programs over the years,” says Jonathan Palmer, vice president of retail technology and innovation for Retail Without Boundaries by Innomark. “His unwavering commitment to ensuring that his unique designs are fully executed always challenges our team to be innovative both with materials and production processes to achieve his vision. He is always thoughtful and articulate in his communication, which brings the best out of us!”

As the company continues to grow internationally, Leonard’s team is also navigating the balance between expressive creativity and operational consistency.

“We’ve learned to recognize when a market calls for a bold, disruptive statement versus when efficiency should take the lead,” he says. “Creativity doesn’t always have to be a dramatic visual moment. Sometimes the most creative solution is the practical one. The real question is always: is the juice worth the squeeze?”

Looking ahead, Leonard is energized by the next stage of Mammoth’s journey. After all, global scale, a growing portfolio of brands and more sophisticated retail expectations mean more opportunities to create meaningful, memorable experiences.

“What excites me is finding the creative solutions that help our retail presence feel fresh and distinctive,” he reflects. “We’re building the next chapter of how our brands show up in the world. Balancing our growth as a company with the ever-changing external retail landscape keeps things dynamic.”