The Blush Brush is a fictional beauty tool designed with accessibility and empathy at its core. While learning about various design principles and methodologies, I realised that there is a significant gap that exists in the Design Thinking Process when it comes to designing products that are usable but also accessible, especially when it comes to user groups that might be differently-abled, or may possess certain restrictions of usage.
Inspired by the lack of accessible beauty products in the cosmetics industry, I created a prototype for the Blush Brush, to challenge myself to push the bounds of conventional design. I also wanted to highlight the female experience (which often trivialised in design processes), and cater to an audience that expanded beyond the average consumer.
Designed for my Experience & Interaction class at Northeastern University (FA22). Created under the mentorship of Professor Bolor Amgalan.
Presented at the Northeastern SCOUT Design Conference (2023)
I started this project by digging through my own makeup bag and picking out a product that was the most valuable to me. I ended up picking my Milani Rose Powder Blush; something a friend at college had recommended to me during my freshman year, which had become a makeup staple. While I had always found the gold packaging and ornate rose-shaped pressed powder charming design choices, viewing the product through the lens of accessibility made me begin to question how well-designed it really was.
Traditional powder blushes tend to be round or oval shaped. This often makes then hard to open easily, due to their lack of stable gripping points. This means that while I found the Milani blush cute and valuable, someone with a weaker grip or poorer hand-eye coordination would definitely find it difficult to use, and would not enjoy the experience of using the product in the same way as I did. This made me think about the accessibility of makeup and cosmetic products.
I'm sure you're wondering why I picked the cosmetics industry as the focal point for this project. While there are many issues with the industry and its standards, makeup and cosmetics have always been an integral part of human culture, especially so for women and other gender groups. Makeup is used as a tool for self-expression and identity, and most consumers use makeup products to feel confident.
However, most cosmetic brands target a younger population and do not account for the actual experiences of other user groups, like older women who may be losing their eyesight and dexterity, or differently-abled individuals. This limits the experience of these user-groups.
Beyond accessibility, I also wanted to pick the cosmetics industry because traditional design often tends to neglect or entirely ignore about the experiences of woman and other gender groups. Industries like cosmetics, which predominantly cater to women, are often trivialised. I wanted to challenge these norms and design a product that brought to light the various issues that exist within the social politics of design.
While some accessible beauty brands do exist, when it comes to powder blushes, there aren't any blushes that cater to those with poor eyesight or low dexterity. I decided to take inspiration from existing products and think of fictional abilities that my product could have.
My redesign aimed to create a more accessible powder blush that combines the brush and the rouge into one object. I focused on catering to the needs of someone who may have poor hand-eye coordination, weaker grip or shaky hands, a disability that affects an arm or poor eyesight.
I wanted to make the redesigned object cute and aesthetically appealing, with rose or flower imagery inspired by the original Milani Rose Powder Blush, since that was a large part of the reason why the object was so meaningful and appealing not only to me, but to many others like me who may have purchased the blush for its visual design.
I created storyboards to start visualising the setting in which my product would be used. This helped me start making some initial sketches and ideas for what the prototype should look like. I also used TinkerCAD to 3D model the brush, using my sketches as a guide.
The features of this initial prototype were:
After a round of critique from my peers and getting some more inspiration from Professor Amgalan, I began exploring the fictional aspect of this Fictional Object. If I could bring this product to life, what features would it have to help support those users who couldn't see as well, or those who had difficulty holding traditional round compacts?
Some additional features that the final prototype had were:
I also designed some mock graphics to place the object within context and showcase what it would look like if it was a real beauty product available for sale.
After presenting my object to the class I received a lot of valuable feedback. While I am happy with the process of making my prototypes, and I believe the current design is a strong base, I can definitely see the future scope of the project. I think iterating on the physical and digital prototypes (especially the 3D model I made on TinkerCAD) helped me develop a thorough understanding of object-creation and combining fictional features into realistic objects.
I was also able to present this project at the annual Northeastern SCOUT Design Conference (2023) - Interventions: Ignite.
