Adore Me
Client: Adore Me (Victoria’s Secret)
Role: Freelance Brand Designer
Creative Strategy: Collaborated with Adore Me’s marketing team to identify design pain points and strategic goals.
Visual Design: Crafted engaging email templates, social media graphics, and marketing assets.
Brand Refresh: Refined color palettes, typography, and layout styles to create a cohesive look.
Skills: Visual storytelling, Typography and layout design, User research and behavioral analysis, Brand strategy development
How might we refresh Adore Me's email and marketing designs to create a modern, playful brand identity while enhancing customer engagement and ensuring consistency across campaigns?
Adore Me, a direct-to-consumer lingerie brand, approached me to revamp their email and marketing designs to align with their evolving brand identity. The project aimed to modernize their visual language, improve customer engagement, and ensure consistency across their digital communications.
Project Goals
Elevate the Brand Identity: Update the design elements to reflect a fresh, modern, and playful tone.
Enhance Customer Engagement: Create visually appealing email templates that drive higher click-through and conversion rates.
Ensure Consistency: Develop design guidelines for emails and marketing assets that align with the broader Adore Me brand.
Challenges
Maintaining the balance between playful visuals and professional aesthetics.
Working within existing brand guidelines while pushing for creative innovation.
Designing templates flexible enough for ongoing campaigns yet distinct enough to feel bespoke.
New Year’s Campaign
Design Decisions
I approached this email with the goal of creating something fresh and engaging that ties directly into the excitement of New Year’s resolutions. Here’s why I made certain design choices:
Tapping into New Year Energy: The tagline, "Make resolutions fun—and lacy," was crafted to feel playful and relevant to the season. It connects Adore Me’s products to the mindset of starting fresh and feeling confident in the new year, aligning with the audience’s emotional state.
Creating Urgency: Adding "Shop or Skip before the 5th!" gently pushed VIP members to take action without feeling overly pressured. This reinforced the exclusivity of their perks.
Strong Visual Flow: The layout began with a hero section to grab attention, followed by product visuals showcasing the collection, and ended with a clear reminder of VIP perks. Each section worked together to guide customer attention and drive clicks.
Highlighting Perks: The perks section at the bottom reminded members why staying engaged mattered. Icons made it visually appealing, while the copy reinforced the value of their membership.
Accessibility Considerations
Contrast and Readability: High-contrast text ensured readability, and font sizes were optimized for legibility across devices.
Alt Text: All images included meaningful alt text, such as "Pink lace bodysuit on a model in a romantic setting," to support screen readers.
Clear CTAs: Bold, clearly labeled buttons made it easy for users to interact, ensuring functionality on both desktop and mo
BOGO Campaign
Design Considerations:
Visual Hierarchy: The header text "Your Favorites, Doubled!" is prominent and clear, immediately grabbing attention. The CTA buttons, such as "Shop Now!" and "Double your style for half cost," are bold and well-positioned, ensuring they stand out and drive action.
Brand Voice Alignment: The tone and design remain consistent with Adore Me’s branding: elegant, engaging, and customer-focused. The use of delicate illustrations (e.g., clock, gift boxes) complements the whimsical yet chic tone of the email.
Responsive Design: The email has been optimized for desktop, tablet, and mobile screens, ensuring the layout adapts seamlessly to different devices. The text and images scale proportionally, and the spacing ensures readability on all screen sizes.
Encouraging Urgency: Copy elements like "Shop or Skip before the 5th" and "Hurry — your VIP perks won’t wait forever" effectively create a sense of urgency without overwhelming the reader. Including the "Buy One, Get One Free" offer prominently reinforces the value of taking immediate action.
Engagement-Driven CTAs: Multiple, strategically placed CTAs guide the user toward shopping, ensuring no opportunity for conversion is missed.
Accessibility Notes:
Simplified Navigation: A clear layout with minimal distractions ensures users with cognitive disabilities can easily follow the email flow and understand the message.
Adaptable for Colorblind Users: The email avoids relying solely on color to convey information. For example, bold text and icons accompany CTAs and key points.
Valentine’s Day Campaign
Design Considerations
Visual Hierarchy:
The headline, “Adore Me’s Sending Love collection is here to sweep you off your feet,” establishes the collection’s theme while immediately grabbing attention.
CTAs such as "Find the Perfect Match" and "Your Perfect Match Awaits 💌" are strategically placed and styled to stand out, guiding the customer towards action.Romantic Theme:
The design evokes a sense of romance and charm, perfect for Valentine’s Day. Elements like stamps, hearts, and handwritten-style graphics reinforce the “love letter” aesthetic. When brainstorming, I envisioned a modern successful meet-cute—leaning more toward cute, romantic, and empowering vibes than overtly sexy. Think Hinge rather than Tinder.
Red and pink tones are used prominently, aligning with the Valentine’s Day theme while maintaining brand consistency.Product Spotlight:
The email highlights a curated selection of products with descriptive captions (e.g., "Sweet Prints: Playful, romantic, irresistible"). This approach creates a cohesive narrative around the collection and encourages exploration.Responsive Design:
Layouts are optimized for desktop and mobile, ensuring images and text scale appropriately. Mobile design prioritizes simplicity, stacking products and CTAs vertically for better readability.Social Proof:
Including customer testimonials, such as “I felt amazing in this! Esp after my husband said…,” adds authenticity and builds trust, encouraging conversions.
Accessibility Notes
Contrast and Readability:
Text is placed over solid or lightly textured backgrounds, ensuring sufficient contrast for readability.
Font sizes are optimized for both desktop and mobile viewing to improve accessibility.Descriptive CTAs:
Buttons are labeled with clear, actionable text (e.g., "Find the Perfect Match"). This ensures clarity for all users, including those relying on screen readers.Alt Text for Images:
All product images and decorative elements include descriptive alt text, such as:“Red lace lingerie set with heart embroidery.”
“Pink floral lace bodysuit with delicate straps.”
Responsive Adjustments:
On mobile, the stacked layout simplifies navigation and ensures key elements like CTAs and testimonials remain easy to interact with.Customer Testimonials:
Testimonials are marked as block quotes and include screen reader tags to differentiate them from product descriptions.
Future Strategy Considerations
Interactive Elements:
Introduce hover effects or animations on CTAs (e.g., a heart icon pulsing when hovered) to make the design feel more interactive.Add a Carousel:
Showcase more products without overwhelming the layout.Personalized Content:
Include customer-specific recommendations based on past purchases or browsing history to drive higher engagement.Social Media Integration:
Include links to Valentine’s Day-related content on Instagram or Pinterest to create a seamless cross-platform experience.Post-Event Follow-Up:
After Valentine’s Day, send an email showcasing “Top Picks from the Sending Love Collection” to encourage customers to purchase remaining inventory.
Key Takeaways
What Went Well:
Successfully modernized Adore Me's brand identity by creating playful yet professional designs that aligned with the target audience's emotional states.
Increased customer engagement with strategic use of urgency, visually engaging CTAs, and carefully curated product narratives.
Developed reusable and scalable design templates, ensuring consistency across campaigns while simplifying future updates.
Accessibility efforts, such as optimized contrast, descriptive alt text, and responsive layouts, made the designs inclusive and functional for all users.
Leveraged A/B testing to refine campaigns based on data insights, improving email performance by increasing click-through and conversion rates.
What I Would Do Differently:
Explore more interactive elements (e.g., hover effects or subtle animations) to create a richer experience and encourage deeper engagement.
Personalize content further by incorporating customer-specific recommendations based on past purchases or browsing history.
Introduce a clearer feedback loop with Adore Me’s marketing and customer support teams to ensure design decisions address real-time challenges and customer feedback.
Test additional formats, such as video or motion graphics, to elevate the storytelling aspects of campaigns.
Focus on creating even more modular design components to enable rapid adjustments for different seasonal campaigns or product launches.