Coils & Curls
Inspired by my own hair care journey, Coils & Curls is a hair care website designed to help women of color, care for and love their natural hair. This website educates women about their curl patterns, products, and care practices.
Art Direction: Bridget Curry
Prototype
Upon visiting the site, users will begin their journey with a few testimonials for inspiration and reassurance. They are then given brief information on each curl pattern to help identify which is theirs. Following this there are two options, take a short quiz to tailor a routine to their lifestyle or a quick kit which can be order based on their identified curl type. The site also has a shop page of curated natural hair products which can be filtered based on curl type and an inspiration page with tutorials on styling techniques.
Icons
Walkthroughs
Products
After designing the website I decided to expand Coils & Curls to offer their own line of products. Each product is designed to cater to a specific curl type.
Micro Walkthroughs
An app that helps users working on group projects stay organized and maximize the amount of time they have to complete a task. Each user updates their progress and unlocks a badge with each completed task.
Brand Style
The name for this site reflects the state of natural hair, which for certain curl types is considered curly, coily, or kinky. The ampersand in the logo is a curl, coiled around the two words to unite them. Throughout the site I wanted to incorporate images that would inspire other women and build their confidence so I selected images of everyday women happy with their hair. As for the color palette, I focused on earth tones with a touch of pink to help the site to feel nurturing and supportive.
Process
During the research phase of this project I analyzed many different aspects of haircare. I narrowed my search by selecting a target audience—women of color predominately in their teens to early 30s. Then I looked into companies that provided custom care products, blogs about natural hair care, and blogs about women’s personal transitions to natural hair. After reviewing various sources I realized there isn’t anything that “does it all”. The process of transitioning to natural hair can be intimidating and overwhelming for some, it took months of research for me to understand my own hair (and I’m still not an expert). I could only imagine how discouraging it could be for others to sift through all of this information. As a result, I came out of the research phase wanting Coils & Curls to be a website that brings everything together in an organized, step by step process. To fully understand my audience I began by creating user personas.
The design for the website saw many iterations, I knew I wanted to create a valuable resource for users, but I wasn’t exactly sure of the tone. Did I want to be bold and get them excited? Or a bit more gentle and nurturing? After testing out hero images, color palettes, and typefaces, I landed on a happy medium. Coils & Curls is not only a website that excites users, it also talks to them in a friendly manner to help build their confidence.
Sketches, Sitemap, & Wireframes
