Who’s Inspiring Whom?

Stila’s portable high-tech vanity case ticks many creative packaging boxes.

Art seems to be the new creative driver for beauty brands.

By Jonathan Ford, Pearlfisher

The current mood dictates that we are no longer necessarily impressed by the creation of a new brand, but rather, that we are all looking for impressive ways to be truly creative with what we already have. And this is manifesting in several ways. We are seeing more customizable products, requests from brand owners to help them create new looks and, perhaps most interesting, the trend for using art to create a new expression of a brand’s packaging design. The bar is definitely being raised. But, who is inspiring whom? And what could this mean not just for the brand but, moving forward, for creativity and the barriers between beauty packaging and art?

Creative Muse-ings

Women have experimented with mixing colors and products in the privacy of their own homes for years. And brands are now realizing that rather than relinquishing control of their brand/product, by actively helping women to do this—in an era that’s all about the individual—everyone feels more empowered. Customizable makeup has been around for a while, but more and more brands are now devising their own offer. For example, we have recently seen Bare Escentuals following in Shu Uemura and MAC’s wake with its customizable eyeshadow and liner palette. Bare Escentuals has been mistress of the tutorial for a long time, and it’s a shame that this palette/packaging does not really communicate the next incarnation. But it’s the right course of action: empowering women to feel that they are as creative as the color and product supremos producing the brands.
Following Dove’s Real Women campaign, Bobbi Brown recently launched her Pretty Powerful campaign www.bobbibrown cosmetics.com/prettypowerful, which uses Bobbi’s real friends rather than models. Bobbi is also running a video contest in which women are invited to send in videos of their strongest makeup look and tips; the winner then receives the chance to win a portfolio of Bobbi Brown products. Brands are looking for new and interesting ways to help us get creative with their products, and also to find ways to co-exist in real and virtual time without removing the brand too far from the actual products and the all-important packaging touchpoint.

The New Interface

Beauty brands know that they have to push their creative boundaries and that the virtual world is creating a seemingly insatiable demand for more activity from—and interactivity with—our brands.

Beauty websites, blogs, apps—it’s hard to keep up and decide where in cyberspace is best for your brand to exist and how best to showcase it. But, even though—or perhaps because—we are no longer buying from the point of view of the brand in the hand, packaging design is more important than ever. Within the boundless limits of this new beauty landscape, the visual language and messaging has to be as strong, but succinct, as possible.

Stila has recently introduced its 4.0 Makeup Player. The portable high-tech vanity case connects to any MP3 player so you can download, watch and listen to free makeup lessons or music while you apply your makeup. It is a great brand innovation but, in essence, the premise is very much about showcasing the Stila product portfolio and its uses. The case is branded and the home/hold-ing page bears the Stila name, stars and sparkle. If you click on a tutorial, you see a makeup artist and model and a range of Stila products displayed. Prior to each new product being used on the model, the product packaging takes a whole screen shot. What better advertisement for the power of packaging design?

This product ticks many boxes—creative, interactive and cultural. And the influence of art and culture is becoming as relevant to beauty as to any other category. We are now starting to address how we elevate the cultural status of packaging design.

Designing a Brand New Expression

Some brands in other sectors—say, beverage—have invited customers to customize not just the product, but have held contests for customizing packaging. And, yes, while it’s a way of customers designing their own products, it also adds a new level of desirability. But now we are seeing beauty brand owners looking for new design expressions of their packaging on a limited edition basis. Last summer’s Delicious Art Limited Edition of DKNY Be Delicious in a pop art style with dots, letters and speech balloons paid homage to one of the most energetic art genres, but stayed close to the brand truth and added value through subtle packaging design motifs. It created difference and disruption and a new desirability.

And what of that revered visionary, the artist? Some brands, such as Hugo Boss, are embracing this trend wholeheartedly and asking the artists themselves to get involved in the future incarnation of packaging.

To celebrate its 15th anniversary this year, Hugo Man has launched the Hugo Create competition—not for Joe Public— but for artists who’ve been invited to create exciting designs that feature the number 15 somewhere in the image. The winner will receive a cash prize and be featured in design style bible ID Magazine. I have previewed some of the entries and all are very eye-catching and representative of so many different styles of art. An experiment? Or, a new creative route that could now sit comfortably alongside and work with design? Design should be approached as holistically as possible, and I believe that a considered mixing of media and disciplines, influences and skill sets, should serve to enhance the creative possibilities. Cue Chanel.

Chanel’s latest incarnation is the production of a set of limited edition temporal tattoos designed by Chanel’s artistic director Peter Phillips.Fashion? Beauty? Art for art’s sake? Regardless, Chanel needs to find a way to be culturally relevant. Chanel on Twitter, for example, seems ludicrous, but Chanel expressing its identity through exquisitely beautiful body art is believable and covetable and an artistic route that now that it is here does seem an apposite next brand step. I wait with bated breath to see how the tattoos will be packaged.

Hugo Man has launched the Hugo Create competition—inviting artists to create exciting designs that feature the number 15 somewhere in the image.

The Art of Packaging

What will be the new normal? Just how far can we go?

Yes, consumers are definitely influencing and steering the brand owner more than ever before, but when it comes to just who is inspiring whom, art seems to be the new creative driver for beauty brands.

This month, we have primarily looked at brands that (at the time of writing) are literally just launching and, therefore, I am unable to give a true picture of the merits—or lack thereof—of the packaging designs. But, if we look cross-category, to art/packaging design initiatives that are already in the public arena, we can actually see the power that this may wield over the beauty category and its packaging direction.

Following the launch of the refreshed—and more colorful— packaging for Green & Black’s chocolate, the revered Peter Blake created a mosaic work of art using hundreds of bars of the chocolate with its new packaging.

The Green & Black’s “Heart” has been receiving widespread acclaim, and shows that it is entirely possible to successfully merge the two disciplines of art and design. But, above all, it is a great testament to the power of packaging design as a creative—and commercial—force to be reckoned with.

Essentially, this challenges expectations and gives us a new way of looking at packaging design from an artistic perspective. Will the future hark back to the past and once more be about art mirroring beauty? Just who will inspire whom next in the art of packaging?