Glo Up: A Beauty Brand For the Goddess on the Go

For our Design Principles class during the Fall 2016 semester, we were assigned into different groups to create a new company and design its brand identity. My group was assigned to create a beauty brand. We decided to call it “Glow Up,” and decided to drop the “W” for a more off-beat look. The name is a play on the phrase “grow up,” alluding to the transformation from ugly duckling to socialite swan (so to speak). Our target audience is young millennial women (ages 18-35) transitioning from college to career, who want a fun, sassy, sophisticated, and youthful way to express themselves through makeup. Our company also wants to promote sustainability by using natural ingredients infused in our lipstick formulas.

At first, we had each come up with completely different logo designs. One of my initial designs was emblem that had the company name encased in geometrical shapes, such as stars, to create a shiny diamond effect and emphasis the “glow” aspect of the name, as shown below. However, I later thought it was a bit too literal, and I didn’t quite like the way the letter “G” looked in this font. It gives off a vibe of sophistication, but it looked like a traditional cursive font for something that we wanted to look fresh, youthful, and savvy.

I preferred the simplicity of having a distinct calligraphy font to keep the target audience’s focus on the company name itself and I added a couple of brush strokes to create a smooch mark to hint that our beauty brand specializes in lip products. The shape of the letter “G” in the Blacksword font reminded me a little of Marilyn Monroe and Marina & the Diamonds, and just to be playful I added a star next to the lips as a beauty mark for the abstract/letterform logo.

Below are the other two drafts I created: a wordmark logo as well as a conceptual letterform/abstract logo that utilized experimentation with typography, closure, and gestalt.

Abstract/Letterform Wordmark

When we reconvened as a group, we decided to combine my idea of using the cursive font with a simple brushstroke that resembled a lipstick smear, which another member of the group had thought of using in her draft. We didn’t go with my version of the abstract logo, but I liked that we also decided as a group to incorporate the brushstroke to the shape of the face in the final abstract logo that another team member had originally come up with in her drafts. You’ll see the team’s final abstract in the lipstick box packages and the iPhone cases that I designed.

Here’s our final group logo:

As for our final design applications, we each were in charge of different applications: a brochure that featured our product package list; a compact mirror; an Instagram page; an online advertisement banner for Facebook; full-page print advertisements for magazine publications such as Vogue and Essence; and a cosmetic bag.

The following images below are the applications that I designed for the final presentation: the website mockups for the company’s Index page and the About page, the iPhone cases as ephemera, and of course, the lipstick packaging itself. I wrote the copy for the Glo Up website, as well as the company description and the tagline. With the exception of the quote for the color Violet, I also created three of the motivational quotes on the iPhone cases (my favorite brand, Kate Spade, and my own journals of collected quotes served as inspiration), and I chose to create at least 4 different versions using different shades to showcase the variety of colors that Glo Up can offer customers.