The idea for Ferrous Beauty came to be when the founder, a former tennis player, found herself struggling to find makeup that could keep up with her active lifestyle. She’d often run straight from work to the court or the gym, and noticed how her makeup would smear, smudge and flake off at the onset of sweat. Unless she took her makeup off beforehand, she was faced with dehydrated skin and breakouts. She wished she could formulate products that would endure a full sweat session without the unpleasant side effects. And so she did. Drawing upon her experience in the cosmetic industry, this athlete-turned-entrepreneur got down to work developing a line of products made with high quality, hydrating, protective ingredients. 

When I began working with Ferrous, they already had a logo and an initial brand concept in mind. But before we started designing the packaging, we needed to evaluate whether that brand concept represented all that Ferrous Beauty hoped to become. I sat down with the founder to soak up as much information as I could about her products and her target audience. Learning about science of key ingredient helped me understand the products’ benefits and values so that when we began talking about the target audience and their lifestyles we were aligned on what Ferrous Beauty needed to communicate. This helped us make objective decisions about how the brand should look and feel in order to support that messaging.

What we noticed was that the original brand concept did a good job at communicating strength and bravery. It skewed heavier on the serious side, playing into the strength and seriousness of a high performance athlete. But Ferrous wasn’t just for elite athletes, it needed to appeal to a more casual athletes, the ones squeezing in a spin class before meeting up with friends, or the ones taking time to recharge on their lunch break with a quick yoga session. We needed the brand to tap into the gentler side of athletics too. Ferrous Beauty needed to champion performance while still feeling fresh, vibrant and approachable. We evolved the original brand concept by introducing a more causal font, and extending the colour palette to include a pastel pink, a punchy red and an up-beat yellow. From there, we began testing the brand concept across actual applications, such as packaging, ads, and web layouts. It allowed us to play with the brand elements and see how they worked together to create a holistic expression of all that Ferrous represents.