Illamasqua gets a make-over

The background

Illamasqua has been a long-term client of Branded3 and just like them, we’ve come a long way since the beginning when their brand was relatively unknown. Illamasqua are now considered a leading luxury brand in the industry, having quickly reached something of a cult status.

They have built a solid reputation on the Magento platform providing a great ecommerce experience and brand immersion element, however, as the platform had been live for a few years, the time had come to breathe a new lease of life into the site in order to grow further. Afterall, if a leading cosmetic brand can’t have a make-over once in a while, then who can?

The process

Our task was to work closely with the online team and brand designers, enabling us to take the existing llamasqua model and reshape it to its simplest form.

The first major change to consider was whether or not to invert the brand – do we make it white instead of black? Such a big statement was initially quite a shock, but once the dust settled and everyone calmed down (not to mention a few concepts later) it was agreed- white will be the new base colour!

Next up came the task of stripping back the overall design and simplifying the visual look and feel by using lighter colours and more white space. The brand palette was expanded to provide more contrast and a softer feel to some of the areas, aligning it more with the products themselves. The site can now maintain a stronger focus on the ecommerce elements of the site as the brand is truly established.

 

The new design takes a more fluid approach to responsive interfaces, allowing greater compatibility with the ever increasing number of mobile and tablet device users visiting the site. Visitors are now able to browse the site at any time on any device and checkout with a consistent user experience. The fluid layout meant that we needed to ensure that enough white space was maintained throughout the pages which reinforced the premium look and feel associated with the brand.

User friendly navigation

Taking into consideration the many products and product categories, one of the main goals was to develop a user friendly navigation that allowed the user to quickly and conveniently search the site.

We did this by developing a full width mega menu that presented the user with their options in tiers. We also wanted to incorporate the iconic imagery that the brand is known for in the dropdown and allow each category to be assigned an image to create further engagement with the user.

User engagement

We wanted to create user engagement on the product page by incorporating useful content for the reader that encouraged them to come back to the site not only for products but for leading industry information and tutorials.

The blog

Visually, the blog got a new look and feel too, taking inspiration from social media platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. The layout is made up of a grid format that highlight posts with feature imagery, allowing the make-up to once again take centre stage.

Get the look

Some new functionality has been added to the site in terms of the “Get the look” area. This new section allows a visual way of finding products that are used in the imagery and is a new take on the buyer’s journey.

The system connects with Instagram and allows moderators to select associated products straight from the catalogue. Lazy loading in this section also gives a nice touch to allow the user to explore as much as they like without having to load everything at once.

The results

Overall, the combination of the Illamasqua brand team ownership of creative and the web design, UX, UI and technical expertise of Branded3 meant that the end result was the successful reinvention of the brand. Once more, this was something we are all very proud of and a great example of team work between an agency and a brand coming to fruition.

Visit Illamasqua
Source: Branded

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