Today we are moving away from stereotypes. We are a “collage” of different cultural aesthetics and influences blurring the boundaries of race, gender, sexuality and age.

In the past we conformed to culture – but in the future, our constantly evolving and ever more unique quest for individual expression will challenge, change and create it.

This means that our beauty brands will face tougher competition and challenges to fulfill this quest but, in succeeding, they would take the category to another level of interaction and innovation.

We are not denying that groundbreaking and exciting change is already happening. We are seeing beauty offers and expressions – such as Sephora’s Pantone Color IQ – a level of customization that had not been imagined five years ago.

Brands are tapping into this new consumer and cultural mindset and, in turn, accelerating the pace of product and design innovation in the race to shape the future face of the beauty consumer.

As part of our Pearlfisher Futures program, we too have imagined how the future beauty consumer might look and function. And, as a result, have designed a new beauty concept called Frame.

Frame allows you to scan the vast online world for makeup inspiration and then matches your unique facial profile to create your physical ID. After transforming your inspiration into a complete new look, it acts as an on-hand makeup artist to achieve a professional finish through layers of perfectly applied product.

This concept, as with other category changing breakthroughs now coming to market, is indicative of a new movement of innovation.

As we extend and perfect the reach and targeting of our demographic, the beauty offer becomes at once both more precise and more flexible. Creating and designing for the individual but on a mass level is a very real proposition.

So what could this mean for the future of packaging design?

To work with a concept such as Frame, products would need to be scaled accordingly or form a brand partnership to be produced using existing technology brought together as one streamlined process.

Manufacturing and production costs aside, multi-faceted or more flexible structures and delivery may become a reality or, at least, just one of a number of future considerations for packaging that will need to work across multi-formats and multi-channels.

We are not just talking about beautiful packaging origami but new and truly efficacious and adaptable solutions to meet future needs and desires. And not necessarily about creating future waste or yet more packaging to recycle or dispose of but just more clever and sustainably holistic solutions. Disappearing packaging is an idea currently being mooted and could debut in the beauty arena with water-soluble boxes for soap or face wash.

All in all, we are seeing thinking and innovation that steers away from the restricted, the uniform and the ubiquitous. We are in an era of anything goes, and still expect this marketplace to lead, break boundaries and evolve to embrace all of today’s beauty consumers and their individual desires.

This presents a new, exciting and challenging opportunity for brand packaging and design to provide solutions with the strong designer’s aesthetic that this industry is famed for.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sophie Maxwell is Futures Director at Pearlfisher
[email protected] www.pearlfisher.com