01
The Ask
Urban Proverb is an independent skincare brand, specialising in raw body butter and oils. For the skincare brand, I was approached by the founder to create a website for the brand. The ask consisted of building a website that showed the vision of the brand, whilst depicting what was being sold. As the brand’s mission was based on selling skincare, as well as promoting sustainability within sub-Saharan Africa, it was important to show all aspects of the brand.
Multiple pages were needed to convey the brand and it was important to ensure that the website itself, had elements of rawness and paid homage to Africa, where the founder sources ingredients from. The design that I created, aimed to be informative yet creative by using images that reflected the brand, as well as ensuring that the design was kept simple and sleek.
02
Exploration
When looking at defining the problem, sometimes it is not that there is a problem to define, but rather an opportunity. In this case, there is the opportunity to further establish the brand, through the provision of a website. It presents a source for customers to buy and engage with the brand with minimal effort. This has the potential to increase customer engagement and build an understanding of Urban Proverb for the customer.
As an e-commerce site, it was important to convey the tone of the brand, whilst pushing the products sold by the firm. In the case of Urban Proverb, it was important to understand the owner, to understand how she saw the brand and what she wanted to convey to customers. For this reason, an interview was conducted with the owner to explore the vision of the brand, and create a basis to develop a worthwhile website.
03
Ideation
The ideation phase is where every idea is brought to the table, and tangible innovations are being created. An exploration of the user journey has been conducted by utilising user research to establish the basis of the typical user. As a user myself, several features arose from asking questions within the ideation phase. Have you ordered an item from Urban Proverb? What are some of your favourite products? How did you hear about Urban Proverb? Do you follow their social media platforms? What other skincare products do you buy? Which similar brands do you like? Why do you buy from Urban Proverb? Answering just a few of these questions and many more, provided insight into how the brand has marketed itself so far and provides insight into the customer perception of the brand.
It also aimed to provide insight into the products that customers use, to further understand the go-to products that are popular. Initially, information architecture was created to visualise the main screens and features of the website. After creating an information architecture, wireframes were created and displayed as mock-ups.
BUILDING THE BRAND VISION
Refinement
The about page was important to the owner, as it provided an opportunity to tell the story of the brand, highlighting the main purpose of promoting sustainability within Africa. The aesthetic and feel of the brand, was mainly translated in this section to provide an understanding to current and potential customers.
As a means to provide full transparency to their customers, the owner asked for a page to be added called ‘Goodness Glossary’. On this page, ingredients were listed and the origin of each was documented. As a skincare brand, typically many will be unaware of the origin of the ingredients of their favourite skincare products. As Urban Proverb's USP, it was imperative to highlight where the raw ingredients came from. As a result, it was logical to create a page showcasing the offerings of the brand and provide an opportunity to be transparent to consumers.
04
Development
Now that you have read through and made it to the development stage, I won’t be keeping you too long to see the final product below. Low-fidelity wireframes were created to illustrate the user flow journey before high fidelity wireframes were made. Created using Figma, the low fidelity wireframes were given to the client for approval. This allowed for the client to understand and grasp what would be shown on the website, and how it would be shown. It also allowed for the client to provide suggestions, and give feedback to allow for a design, that best suited her. The wireframes consisted of multiple pages and ensured that all aspects of the brand were shown.
Colours used were sourced from the current branding to ensure continuity between the concept design and the current branding. Take a look at the final product below that was developed on Shopify and if you like what you see why not get in touch? (Don’t worry, I made it easy for you it’s just one click at the top.) If you have not purchased a product from Urban Proverb before, I highly recommend that you try the comforting body butter – you will not be disappointed!
05
Urban Proverb
Urban Proverb
/ˈəːb(ə)n/ˈprɒvəːb/
noun: Urban Proverb is an organic skincare brand that aims to develop high-quality products that cater to this demand and aim to redefine the narrative of Africa within the beauty industry.
Role // Visual Design; Art Direction; Development
Year // 2020