Chroma is a cosmetic brand that recognizes and celebrates the dynamic spectrum of identity expression.
Design Research | Product & Brand Design | Design Strategy
Teammates: Pantea Parsa & Yufei Wang
Skills:
User Research Interviews
Market Research & Brand Strategy
Design Prototyping
My Role: Design Research, Brand Strategy, Marketing Artwork
Challenge:
Traditional constructs of masculinity and gender expression are changing, resulting in an increase in male identifying, and presenting individuals wearing cometic products. But the current Western cosmetic industry is not adjusting to this cultural shift and continues to focus on women and female identifying customers in terms of product offering and marketing. This reinforces restrictive cultural gender norms that create an environment of stigma around male presenting or male identifying individuals wearing cosmetic products.
Goal:
The goal was to create a dynamic brand and product offering for the spectrum of gender non-conforming, male identifying and male presenting individuals that are currently excluded or under served by the traditional cosmetic industry. Our mission is to redefine and redesign what masculinity means and looks like while destigmatizing the use of cosmetic products.
Why is Chroma Different?
Chroma is a cosmetic brand that caters to a wide spectrum of male identifying and male presenting individuals. Our brand aims to address the cosmetic needs of a spectrum of individuals; from those who are makeup curious to those who are comfortable using cosmetic product and wear a full face of makeup. The beauty of this brand is that there is no specific rule set or script they need to follow in order to enjoy our product. This brand is about providing a range of products that individuals can engage with in anyway that they are comfortable and excited about.
Chroma is designed for the Creative Self-Starter. They are Male and male presenting and approximately between 18 and 32 yrs old. These young men have professional and creative ambitions that span a number of industries including fashion, design, music and photography. They curate and experiment with their image and personal identity. They see value in purchasing quality products that are well crafted and aspirational in nature.
Branding
Visual Narrative
Chroma’s branding aims to create an experience and feel mirrors the spectrum of users we serve. Chroma is playful, inclusive, bold, sincere and a tad irreverent. Chroma is all about creative, personal expression and draws on the foundations of art and design to build a brand architecture that creates cool, fun and unique products.
Color Palette
The color palette is inspired by the foundations of color theory. Chroma’s primary palette uses primary and secondary colors.
The secondary palette is comprised of sophisticated shades and hues of the primary palette along with black, white and magenta to create a bold and playful color statement.
Graphics
Chroma’s graphic language uses elemental, two-dimensional shapes to create dynamic compositions that spell out the name of the brand. This is used primarily in marketing collateral.
Product
Chroma’s product forms are created using compositions of art and design’s most elemental, three-dimensional forms. These basic shapes are playfully combined to create unique cosmetic containers.
Logo & Typography
“Chroma” refers to the intensity of distinctive hue or saturation of color. The product named is created with the elemental two-dimensional shapes in place of the “o.”
It is paired with the tagline “you, on your terms” to highlight the creativity and individuality that each user can achieve with our product line.
Marketing
Research | Process
Our research began by identifying the leading group of individuals who are pioneering this cultural shift. “Makeup Boys,” are leading group of young makeup vloggers that post makeup tutorials, product reviews and skincare tips on Youtube, Instagram and vlogging sites. These individuals are unique in that they tend to identify as male or gender non-conforming and wear makeup for makeup’s sake (i.e. not wearing cosmetics only when in drag) This group, and the wide audience they connect with, are underserved and unrepresented by the current industry and product landscape.
We interviewed male presenting or identifying individuals who wear cosmetic products; asking about their experiences and challenges, product pain points and opportunities.
The team watched YouTube tutorials from trend leaders and analyzed trends in the global male cosmetic market including the competitive landscape, product offerings and market size.
We dug into understanding the the social and cultural factors that influence the world’s largest male cosmetic market, South Korea. We then compared these against the emerging social and cultural factors in the West that indicates the future viability of this product market.
The team visited brick & mortar cosmetic stores to examine both product offerings and brand experience. We conducted user testing with male identifying individuals of current industry offerings for insights and feedback around usability and product understanding. We analyzed the current industry’s product design explored with 3D prototyping to how to address the pain points of our target user group regarding product size and application they experience with the current makeup products.
“Right now there is no middle ground for a person like me. I don’t want a full face of makeup - I just want a couple of products so that my eyelashes pop, because they look nice… and maybe a little glimmer.”
— Christopher Morales, Cosmetic User
