IDEATING

(My digital artifact)

The design thinking process, for obvious reasons, starts with an internal brainstorm.

As this is my first semester after deferring for 6 months (subsequently deciding to defer for only 6 months and not one year because all my friends traveling Europe was making me depressed), I have not only stuffed up this whole semester in that I now have to attend uni part time,  but do not have an existing digital artifact to build on top of from last semester, as I am aware people who did BCM 112 do.

However, I am not one to shy away from a challenge. With a little determination, and a lot of panic, the brain-storming process begun. This process was extremely useful as it led to an existing DA that I started in my senior years of high school; ‘HannahWardMakeup.’ I found a way to unite business with my passion of makeup, by creating an Instagram page, @hannahward_makeup, which began as a platform to showcase my love of makeup. As I began to upload examples of myself doing my own, or others makeup, I was able to use my Instagram page as a marketing tool to attract and build a broad client base. Instagram’s affordances, such as commenting and tagging, were helpful in attracting an increase in clientele, as previous clients tagged my page on their own Instagram pages, creating more awareness for ‘hannahward_makeup.’ Using this app as a marketing tool, I saw a shift in my client base. I continued doing my friends’ makeup, as well as people I’d never met. Throughout tutorial discussions, I learnt that my Instagram makeup page would be a great example of a DA.

Although I knew that hannahward_makeup was going to be my Digital Artifact, traveling to the eastern suburbs to do formal and birthday makeup from the south just wasn’t a realistic use of my time with my work schedule. So, through this, I started to think further into how my knowledge of beauty and cosmetics could help an audience that I have accumulated over the years. Furthermore, I thought about what makes me different from every other instagram/makeup platform, and uncovered an underlying concept of my daily life when it comes to beauty, that being, Korean cosmetics.

Growing up half South Korean, I definitely can say that I’ve been exposed to many things that completely juxtapose western culture. However, in relation to beauty, I started to realize a trend in my annual visits to South Korea. It seemed that every year I would go there would be a new beauty related trend in Korea that was completely opposite to the beauty trend in Australia. I distinctly remember in my visit in 2011 (when a matte cakey foundation look was in trend), the emergence of a dewy highlighted look everywhere in South Korean media. A few years later in 2014 till current time, dewy highlighted faces seem to dominate cosmetic trend all around the world.

SO. I have decided that I would like to niche in something that although touched upon in other makeup platforms is never emphasized, especially amongst young girls, that being, skin care or KOREAN skin care

Makeup and skin care, for me, has always been a way in which has been boosting to my self confidence through being able to be a practitioner of “self-grooming.”  I have a passion for ensuring the well being of young girls that are going through a hard time with self image, self identity or one self’s relationships with others.

113 female students were “asked how important appearance is, how important makeup is to appearance, how important makeup is to self-confidence, how important makeup is to comfort in social situations, and how important makeup is in professional situations, most respondents answered that it was either “very important” or “somewhat important” to all situations.”

The Beauty Industry’s Influence on Woman in Society, (Britton, 2012, pg13-14)

My goal,  through using my instagram and my word press as my DA, will be to assist young girls who are struggling their way through skin care and makeup (as we all do) through how to’s and reviews on products through my blog and the advertising of my blog and truncated teasers through my instagram. I also will leave an option to direct message me if young girl’s are having troubles with boys, friends and family or school, and answer all questions anonymously through my blog, so everyone can try and learn from tough situations that are quite prevalent and widespread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROTOTYPING

 

 

 

hannahward_makeup over the past few weeks since my last post has definitely had a major shift with it’s content. I have gone from advertising my work to potential new clients and already existing ones to a whole new platform that uses instagram story and instagram photos to showcase tips and showcase the usefulness of Korean skincare.

 (Before prototyping)

 (After prototyping)

 

I’ve definitely noticed after my activity on instagram i.e posting instagram stories and photo’s my blog hannahonline.net, experienced a heightened number of viewers as shown below.

The 2nd of September was the day in which I posted the most amount of content on my instagram and made the official change from self advertising to advice and Korean skin care.

With the knowledge that with the regularity of posting on my instagram and the amount of stuff I post on instagram being the drive of views on my blog, I will be posting more content consistently and actively on my instagram to encourage viewers to look at my blog, as well as advertise my blog through my instagram.

I will also incorporate hashtags through my instagrams to perhaps gain more of a following outside of my audience to a larger scale of people I don’t know but are interested in my content. I will use hashtags such as #koreanskincare #koreanskincareroutine #10stepkoreanskincareroutine.

 

My blog so far consists of two items that I have reviewed so far, and I definitely will be continuing to build upon this and furthermore advertise it on my instagram story and see the results of that with the views on my blog that follow.

 

MAKING

Through all my feedback, I realized the most important thing about my particular DA is making sure that it’s relevant. 

 

Making Korean beauty accessible and relevant to my current western audience had become my main goal of my DA. So, I did this through applying this to my own life and picked relevant real life Korean products I use and wrote reviews about them on my blog.

(everyone uses cotton pads)

I achieved my goal through my DA, and have found through doing this DA that YES, I could branch out to people that aren’t western and are Asian but my point is that Korean beauty doesn’t just have to be accessible to Korean style but to any style.