Leila is a cosmetic brand based in Nigeria that creates organic beauty solutions for women. When Leila approached me, they mentioned a few noteworthy issues they were looking to solve, however, there remained one major challenge that worried them – the competition in the cosmetic industry.
According to The CEO of Leila, in the cosmetics industry there is an unwritten rule of thumb which governs the activities and decisions made by various brands. These decisions inadvertently make the individual identity of each industry player blurry and difficult to distinguish. She also stated in the brief that they wanted to solve that problem from onset.
To fully understand the CEO's point of view, I carried out a User research that was focused on understanding user’s behaviours, their needs, and motivations. I reached out to a few accessible retail shops and malls. I gained a clearer insight to the nuances of users and their habits and preferences based on how they react to differing cosmetic products being the target audience. This was executed using the Observation method. I also requested for some records/documents and I was fortunate enough to lay hands on a few. Subsequently, I interviewed some customers, asking them some questions relating to the challenges they encounter. Utmost care was taken to ensure that non-leading questions were asked.
Subsequently, I was able to arrive at accurate results, these results serve to further our understanding of the target market – who the products are for and what their needs are.
To fully understand the CEO's point of view, I carried out a User research that was focused on understanding user’s behaviours, their needs, and motivations. I reached out to a few accessible retail shops and malls. I gained a clearer insight to the nuances of users and their habits and preferences based on how they react to differing cosmetic products being the target audience. This was executed using the Observation method. I also requested for some records/documents and I was fortunate enough to lay hands on a few. Subsequently, I interviewed some customers, asking them some questions relating to the challenges they encounter. Utmost care was taken to ensure that non-leading questions were asked.
Subsequently, I was able to arrive at accurate results, these results serve to further our understanding of the target market – who the products are for and what their needs are.
After analyzing the results from my research, I was able to create personas to represent the users based on the available data collated from my research. Though the personal details of the personas may be fictional, the information used to create the user type matches the information collected.
From the results, I was able to understand the users and what expectations they may have. I discovered that some customers are loyal to one brand not because they can easily spot them or because they are good for them. Some customers are loyal to brands because of how they look. These customers want to associate themselves with some brands because they feel that it is an upgrade for their personality.
I also discovered that most cosmetic brands try to advertise their content by displaying it on the packaging, that is: if the content of the product is pineapple then it will be on the label of the container. The supposed reason for that is so that users can easily recognize the products purpose and content, but sometimes it causes inconsistency across the brand’s products. Although this is a method that works for most brands, my goal however was trying to create a distinctive look for the brand.
I decided to explore a little abstraction in the design and I persisted with this style across all the products. I opted to minimize the color usage as too many colors can be confusing and difficult to distinguish. I used leaves of the fruits to represent each product as an alternative to using the fruits or vegetables. With this mentality, I was able to come up with a very distinctive and premium design for the brand.
From the results, I was able to understand the users and what expectations they may have. I discovered that some customers are loyal to one brand not because they can easily spot them or because they are good for them. Some customers are loyal to brands because of how they look. These customers want to associate themselves with some brands because they feel that it is an upgrade for their personality.
I also discovered that most cosmetic brands try to advertise their content by displaying it on the packaging, that is: if the content of the product is pineapple then it will be on the label of the container. The supposed reason for that is so that users can easily recognize the products purpose and content, but sometimes it causes inconsistency across the brand’s products. Although this is a method that works for most brands, my goal however was trying to create a distinctive look for the brand.
I decided to explore a little abstraction in the design and I persisted with this style across all the products. I opted to minimize the color usage as too many colors can be confusing and difficult to distinguish. I used leaves of the fruits to represent each product as an alternative to using the fruits or vegetables. With this mentality, I was able to come up with a very distinctive and premium design for the brand.
