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Focus on Functionality for a Chic Makeup Brand
The Client
Lilah b. is a luxury makeup brand built around founder Cheryl Yannotti Foland’s mission to create skincare products that are minimal, chic, and nourishing. Driven by the concept of “with less, you are more,” Lilah b. offers a curated assortment of cosmetic products that streamline women’s beauty routines while elevating the way they look and feel.
The Project
Lilah b. wanted to grow their reputation as a beloved beauty brand while addressing various areas of opportunity: create a consistent brand identity, boost site functionality, and improve site content—all under a tight budget and with a legacy website that may prove challenging to update. Their plea to High Seas was simple: to help them maintain their site, improve their online presence, and build a physical brand identity tailored to the needs of their target audience.
THE APROACH
Our team started with a site-wide design audit to get a lay of the land. We set standards for fonts and styling, as well as for photography and graphics to create an appealing, consistent aesthetic that would stand out in the cosmetics marketplace.
To meet lilah b.’s budget, we committed to revamping their existing Wordpress + WooCommerce site into a well-crafted, dynamic e-commerce platform that could handle more robust deliverables, like custom product promotions, coupons, and holiday specials. We also addressed various UX challenges related to asset formatting and administrative tools, and improved the brand’s overall site navigation and visual design.
THE RESULT
Throughout the entire project, we worked side-by-side with founder Cheryl—happily launching most, if not all, customization and promotion requests she presented. We converted lilah b.’s inventory system, which was previously managed partly through online systems and partly through spreadsheet-based manual bulk orders, entirely to WooCommerce. We also set up customized, retailer-specific invoices with special pricing per retailer. A dynamic new retailer webpage was designed to match the brand’s fast-paced in-store expansion, and seo-friendly blog, video, and press pages breathed new life into their site content.
Our biggest challenge was setting up a “Customize” section of the e-commerce web design where shoppers could create their own unique gift set featuring three products of their choice. Our design and development team crafted the wireframes and identified the best approach to implementation, which would ordinarily be a formidable ask for a WordPress site. The final web design delivers seamless integration with the former site aesthetic and platform—it tells a cohesive brand story, engages fans in search of the ultimate beauty products, and delivers an always intuitive customer experience.
Working with the High Seas team has been a joy. They’ve helped us realize all of our innovative ideas, and have made many customizations to our eCommerce platform to keep us moving forward. It’s wonderful to have the support of the whole company, so we can pull in design or UX when needed. Their attention to detail is great and they’re always suggesting improvements to any ideas we bring to them. It’s such a great collaborative relationship.
Cheryl Yannotti Foland
Founder & CEO lilah b.
