Beauty and the Design Beast
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Beauty and the Beast, a movie that teaches children about the importance of kindness and inner beauty. Or not. In a fickle ending to the tale, the Beast transforms into a hot prince. Only then does he live happily ever after with Belle. Apparently looks do matter. Scrap the idea that this is a movie for children, it's really about good design and here's why.
Lesson 1: Don't design just to make things look pretty.
Gaston is the real monster of the story. He's a good-looking hunter from Belle's village. But he's also a nasty, violent liar who tries and fails to marry Belle. Gaston proves that to be successful you need more than good looks. The same is true of design. A brand is first a promise, then an experience and finally a memory. Design effects all three phases. We make sure our designs are not based on false impressions of who you are, like Gaston. Whatever we do we start with strategic planning to understand who you are, where you're going and how to get you there. This way we can create a visual language that suits you. A lot of meticulous detail goes into this: your brand colours, tone of voice, photography style, typography, logo, illustration style icon set, animation style. The list goes on. We make sure we build a truthful representation of your brand using all these elements, not just for the sake of it being pretty. Otherwise it’s no better than Gaston and *spoiler alert* he dies at the end of the film.
Lesson 2: Design a good customer experience
Remember the dinner scene with Lumière, the singing French candle, and flying plates? "Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test". Yes, that one. He knew that the best way to win over Belle was to make her time at the Beast's castle pleasant. Again, it’s a lesson about design. Attracting traffic to your website, social media page or physical store is sometimes a feat in itself, but design should help you go further. We design a customer experience to complete what your brand promised. By creating a solid customer experience, you leave your audience with the right memory, and what people refer to as the "brand" will follow. Belle was planning on starving herself to death before that dinner extravaganza, but she had no problem being the Beast's prisoner afterwards.
Lesson 3: It’s not all about you
To break the curse that turned the handsome kind prince into an ugly Beast, he needed to find true love. So he kidnaps Belle and eventually wins her heart - but she’s still his captive. In an act of kindness, the Beast decides to let her go. Belle goes home and that’s that. But when Gaston leads an angry village mob to murder the Beast, Belle returns to warn him. And here we are again, back to design. The Beast's kindness pays off! Which shows it’s not all about you. It’s about the customer. Part of our strategic planning involves understanding the user journey, from the brand promise to the desired memory, before we ever start designing visuals. By creating the best user experience possible, the customer leaves with the right memory. It's this that turns a one time customer into a returning customer, and hopefully a loyal one too - just like Belle.
Lesson 4: You deserve the full package
Because the Beast was kind to Belle, she stops seeing him as a monster and falls in love. But he still isn't right for her. Inner beauty is great but having outer beauty as well is the winning formula (sorry kids). We approach design with the same intentions.
Designing the right customer experience is what will build your brand. It’s about more than outside appearances like branded merchandise. It’s about designing a whole visual language from your packaging, business cards and photography style to your desktop wallpaper and elevator music. Belle wasn't satisfied with the pretty Gaston, and the movie couldn’t end with an ugly Beast either. The Beast had to turn back into a hot prince before a happily ever after could happen. So be like Belle and get the full package. The beauty and the beast.
Want help finding your design happily ever after? No magic mirrors needed, just give us a call.
