Building a brand identity that connects preferred clientele to an established & professional makeup artist.
Bridget Stred is a well established professional makeup artist, working out of Nashville, TN. With nearly 2 decades in the business, she has a vast amount of experience from which to draw. Her client base is a mix of A-list music artists, advertising clients & people planning special events.
As with many gig workers in the entertainment industry, personal connections are a primary driver of work. Through interviews w/this client & other professional makeup artists a trend presented itself; when new makeup-clients present themselves, their first goal is vetting the makeup artist (MUA) to see if they are a good fit for the project/event. As an additional challenge, the types of clients fall into 2 primary groups; those creating end products in advertising/entertainment, & those needing one-time help for special events (ie brides etc). While both groups like to see work, special event clients are often unfamiliar with the booking process & can thus add a great deal of “busy work” to the selection process.
For this project we will provide an elegant but simple platform for presenting Bridget Stred as an expert & to give her a way to manage new incoming clients.
Through stake-holder interviews & heuristic research we found that many professional MUA’s rely primarily on social media to present their work. However there are some inherent set-backs to this method. First, the low threshold for setting up a social media account lack the prestige of a client might expect from an expert. The second problem is that an effective social media strategy requires a great deal of content creation, which can result in burying portfolio highlights.
A web-based portfolio provides not only a platform to present work, but an opportunity to capture an audience for intentional curated email-marketing. Thus we set out to build a custom portfolio site in Webflow, which would simply & elegantly present Bridget Stred as an expert MUA, & allow potential clients to see work relevant to their needs, & to contact her in a timely but controlled fashion.
When the site was complete we tested it with multiple users. Users were selected on the basis of their relevant experience: hiring a makeup artist. Each user was prompted to narrate aloud as they explored the website. They were then given a series of tasks related to learning more, exploring relevant content & finally contacting Bridget Stred via her site.
In testing all participants were able to complete tasks successfully, however we found that the design choice to label the “about” page nav as “experience” was mildly confusing for some participants.
Some participants called out that they felt unsure about using a contact form to get in touch, as opposed to being provided w/direct contact information. This is feedback worth bearing in mind, as we monitor the success of the site in the long-term.
For a closer look at the pleasing aesthetic of the final product...
