Project Brief

Inspired by the negative effects that internal and external environments in which we live and work wreak havoc on normal healthy skin, haia—Happy As I Am aims to promote physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, social, and professional well-being, starting with skincare.

Research

haia combines Eco-Certified, cutting-edge ingredients with tools to support an inclusive philosophy that you are enough. From daily affirmation rituals to animated characters who embody the emotional, physical, intellectual and even spiritual sides of its customer, haia aims to change the conversation around skincare.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2018 study.

World Health Organization 2017 study.

Inspiration

The basis of inspiration for haia. A gender neutral color palette, balance of the masculine and feminine, and a message about standing for diversity and individuality.

Using the bracelet and jacket as a starting point, we expanded the palette to be more encompassing, in order to give as much diversity and representation as we could.

How you feel on the inside directly affects how you see yourself on the outside. This feeling is integral to the haia brand and why we sought out moments where you can’t just see a persons happiness, but you can feel it too.

We wanted to create an identity that was gender-neutral, inclusive, modern, and embodied a positive and happy vibrancy.

Process

I sketched several iterations of layouts for the skincare bottles and boxes using the existing die-lines from the manufacturer of the bottles. I worked alongside the client and manufacturer to determine the elements that would tie the bottles and boxes together—color and metallic foil.

After the client approved sketches and rough mockups for the bottles and boxes, I began work on the final design layouts. During the sample stage we found out that we had a size mismatch between the bottles and the box die-lines we received from the manufacturer. I coordinated with the box printer to procure new die-lines and make revisions to the current design files.

The client requested to launch their website in phases so that they could begin educating their team and selling the brand to spa partners earlier than the actual launch of the products. I created a series of sitemaps that reflected these stages—the final sitemap is shown here.

In order to gain quick buy-in from the client and his team, I went directly from sketches to high-fidelity wireframes. I wanted to show how each of the different elements the team requested would interact visually as well as infer function before moving to the prototyping stage.

After three months of design, an on-site visit to the primary packaging facility, and hundreds of emails later, we finally received the bottle and box samples with every detail down to the gradient base, uv spot gloss and metallic emboss.