Research is the first step to every design decision- understanding the audience, the competitive landscape, and the brand's visual history before anything is made. That foundation is what makes it possible to translate a brand consistently across mediums, whether that's UI, digital campaigns, or a five-city print and digital signage series where every city needs to feel like itself and part of the same world.
Uplink, a platform by Indie Beauty Media Group connecting indie brands with technology partners and vendors, was redesigned around a simple insight: beauty founders shouldn't have to spend their early momentum hunting down the right partners. After research into the gaps in the entrepreneurial journey specific to the beauty industry, the platform was relaunched in 2021 as a concierge-style experience, putting the right vendors in front of founders so they could focus on building their brands.
A six-month UX research project at Unilever focused on making product benefit claims more compelling to consumers. From competitor analysis to market surveys, the work centered on one core challenge: how do you visually and emotionally communicate something as intangible as fragrance? The output was a best practices framework for benefit communication across demos, visual metaphors, and TVCs.
