For my final major project, I created a blog entitled ‘UntoldBeauty’.
I came up with the idea with the intention to provide images of inspirational make up looks
and product recommendations without the agenda or bias often associated with popular
‘Social Influencers’ in the beauty industry.
The site is targeted at women belonging to the millennial demographic,
aged 18-30 years. In the 16 weeks I had to complete the assignment, I was able
to build a live functioning website that featured a blog feed consisting of
posts containing images of trend-based make up looks. These make up looks are
intended to provide inspiration and guidance to my intended demographic. Although I was able to successfully complete
the task in hand, the development and finalisation of the project was not
without its struggles or challenges. I was able to document these challenges
and continually evaluate my progress in the project through writing a
reflective blog.
For a long while the final aims of my project were in flux until a
late stage when I arrived at a final idea for the project outcome. My project proposal
changed a number of times over the duration of the 16 weeks. This development
was beneficial in the sense that I was able to arrive at an idea I was happy
with producing. However, the downside to the continued process of developing my
idea was that the progress of the project as a whole was a lot slower than
originally planned, which ultimately lead to the project outcome being lacking
somewhat in depth and content. In hindsight, it would have benefitted me if I had
spent more time at the very beginning of the project refining my ideas more thoroughly
in order to arrive at a final concept sooner.
Another factor that also hindered the progress of the project was a
lack of motivation and ambition. As mentioned in my reflective journal, I
frequently felt myself lacking in motivation to complete any work towards to
the completion of the project. I generally felt low in confidence and ambition
and as a result this lead to me doing very little each week towards the word
load ahead of me. This had a major impact on the progress of the project and
resulted in the final few weeks before the assignment deadline being very
stressful due to a feeling of urgency to get a lot of work done in a short
space of time. Overall, I feel that if I had sought help sooner with this issue
or even just pushed myself a little harder to achieve my goals I would
progressed more successfully over the duration of the project.
Budget was another element of the project that didn’t run according
to my original plans. In my initial proposal I had budgeted a certain amount
for the cost of a domain to host the site I would design on Adobe Muse.
However, as stated in my reflective journal, I found adobe muse to be a lot
more difficult and time consuming than expected. After experimenting on the web
designing site Wix, I came to the decision to use Wix rather than Muse despite
the significant price difference. However, I do feel that I made this decision
for the right reasons and it wasn’t without careful consideration. The extra
price was not to the detriment of the project and overall I had few
complications using Wix and found it to be a fairly stress-free process.
Overall, I don’t think this was the wrong decision to make as I feel that if I had
continued to use Adobe Muse I would have made slower progress and not achieved
as good an outcome.
When I consider whether my project outcome met its original aims, I
would overall argue that the site I have created caters to my target audience. Through
my initial research I was able to ascertain that the millennial audience is
heavily reliant upon social media as a determining factor over which beauty
products to buy. Due to an uncertainty of authenticity regarding recommendations
made on beauty blogs I was able to establish that there is a gap in the market
for a blog that provides an impartial and unbiased approach to make up looks
and product recommendations, hence the name ‘UntoldBeauty’ which appropriately
sets the tone for a blog that champions credibilitily of reccomendations. I
also addressed the open mindedness of millennial women towards niche cosmetic
brands by featuring products from variety of companies, including those that
are lesser known in the industry such as IT Cosmetics, Stila and TheBalm
Cosmetics.
on that note, I was however slightly hindered by the imitations of
the widget app I used to feature products on my blog posts. The widget produced by
ShopStyleCollective.Com allows you to create simple widgets that display your
chosen products. These images can then be clicked through to the retailer and
generate commission dependent on the amount of sales your widget generates. I chose
to use this widget because I liked the fact that it was simple to use and could
possibly result in revenue. However, not all cosmetic products are available
through this application and I ideally would have liked to feature more niche
products, rather than some of the more well-known branded products I featured
belonging to the likes of Benefit, NARS and Urban Decay. I think the incorporation
of more lesser known brand names would have further enforced the ‘untold’
nature of the site, consistently championing effective but often over-looked
niche products. If I hadn’t been pushed for time, I would have liked to
research and utilize another method of featuring specific products with less
limitations in terms of variety.
I feel that the site is easy to navigate, and adheres to the target audience’s
common interaction with social media, as featured blog posts are linked from Instagram
updates, which based on my initial proposal research I found to be one of the
most popular and consistently used forms of gaining make up inspiration on social media.
I feel however I could have utilisied this knowledge of my target
audience a little more thoroughly. I could further have extended the exposure
of the site to my target audience by linking it to more social media platforms
such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
I feel that the overall aesthetic of the site is clean, slick and in
context with some of the common conventions of a blog. However, I was keen to
create an aesthetic and layout that wasn’t overly stereotypical. I wanted to
create a site that had more intrigue than your average blog feed. I think I
achieved this through the placement of featured images leading the audience on
to the appropriate blog post. I believe this works effectively by capturing the
attention and interest of the viewer without giving all the details of the post
away up front. Feedback I have received on the aesthetic and layout of the site
has suggested a good balance between the conventions of a typical blog feed and
a more stylized portfolio website.
The images featured are of high quality and in keeping with the
central theme of the blog – subtle, simple but still incorporating current
trends. The final looks are polished and professional looking. Overall there are
only a few elements I would have liked to address in hindsight for example some
of the images lack a little attention to detail in some areas.
However, considering that this is an inspirational blog I feel that
the images featured shouldn’t be unrealistically flawless or perfect as this
could set unachievable standards and even possibly discourage the target audience
from returning to the site if they felt this was the case.
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| Featured Look |
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| Featured Look |
I do feel that there are elements of my final outcome that are
lacking. One of these elements is a lack of content compared to my original aims.
Originally I intended to feature 25 looks on the site but in reality I was only
able to feature a total of six. The lack of content created was mostly down to
personal struggles with motivation and confidence. I also found the maximum
hours allocated to students in the university studios quite limiting. In
hindsight, for future scenarios I need to make sure I stay more on top of aims
and perhaps make sure to set more realistic objectives in the future.
The duration of the project has also resulted in a number of
unexpected outcomes. The most significant is the realization that I can make hard
decisions as a creative professional that are in the best interests of a
creative project. For example, I decided to exclude a couple of the looks that I
shot for the website. I made this decision because I felt that the quality of
the images was not up to standard and that the makeup artistry also was not
accurate enough. I could have decided to include these images anyway in order
to boost content and make my website appear to have more depth, however I felt
that this would not be a professional decision and would in turn hinder the
final outcome.
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| Unfeatured Look |
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| Unfeatured Look |
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| Unfeatured Look |
In final reflection upon the work I have produced, I am very proud
of the professional quality and standard of the work I gave produced. In fact,
I am eager to further develop and work on my blog by continuing to add features
and posts after graduating university. I feel that this would benefit me
greatly as it will continue to encourage me to create high standards of
creative work in order to build an even stronger portfolio which will only make
me more employable in terms of future opportunities.
♯Initiative & Independent Learning
♯Devise Innovative and Appropriate Solutions to a problem or brief
♯Understanding of trends & styling conventions
♯Good working practices
♯Initiative & Independent Learning
♯Devise Innovative and Appropriate Solutions to a problem or brief
♯Understanding of trends & styling conventions
♯Good working practices
