branding | CREATIVE DIRECTION
THE CLIENT.
Amazing Cosmetics is a cosmetics manufacturer founded in Lincolnshire, Illinois in 1999 by Sue Katz and Lisa Thurman. The company is still headquartered in the Chicagoland northern suburb and sells a variety of cosmetics products. Their premiere product, which helped them launch their company is still to this day the AmazingConcealer®, used by a variety of makeup professionals.
THE OPPORTUNITY.
At the time Amazing Cosmetics was trying to compete with larger cosmetics companies like MAC cosmetics and Bare Essentials. Those companies had more refined branding compared to Amazing Cosmetics. AC didn’t have much in terms of branding other than their logo and their existing website. Their AmazingConcealer was well known in the makeup artist industry as being an almost flawless product, but they struggled to find everyday consumers, and most notably newer buyers like millennials. Their brand felt a little dated. We recommended starting with new branding and style, which followed with a design of a “new” gondola in-store fixture for their brand in makeup stores across the country.
new branding as seen in in-store fixtures
THE PROCESS.
While the Amazing Cosmetics leadership team was ready for new branding, style, a refreshed look and feel, they were hesitant for a complete revamp of their primary branding element, their logo. Amazing Cosmetics had been supplying cosmetics stores around the country with their unmatched products, which also came with their existing packaging and identity. Besides their existing packaging, they also had an e-commerce website, but we identified a lack of cohesion between the two, and consistency wasn’t apparent across design elements and pages across the website. We set out to create a new branding and style guide to help create consistency in messaging and tone across marketing tactics. It also helped provide an evolved, modern look and feel to help them stand up to their main competitors at the time.
THE feedback.
The Amazing Cosmetics team was pleasantly shocked to see their brand modernized, clean and consistent with this new refinement to their guidelines. They were extremely happy with their new in-store fixtures and felt that they would attract more customers to Ultas and Sephoras across the US. With this new branding, they felt they were now a true competitor to MAC and Bare Essentials.