What better way is there to learn than to look at what you shouldn’t do?

Lush isn’t just a nice word for “borderline alcoholic,” it’s the name of a global company. Lush makes its millions selling juicy bath-stuffs, shampoos, lovely soaps, and “bath bombs” which splutter bubbles and foam and tasty smells when dropped into water.

The Set Up

Let me start off by saying that the Lush stores and products are pretty awesome.

Lush sells girly stuff, but it doesn’t really have a delicate girly image—it’s kinda rawr-power-girly, personal, delicious, luscious (Lush), and fresh. The store designs mimic a hip greengrocers’ with faux handmade signs, lots of wood, and casual-looking but very calculated merchandising.

And it works.

Doesn’t that just make you want to buy? Or possibly just steal a bit and eat it?

Oh, and they are not cheap. Nooooo, sir. This is a place where you splurge on yourself. You’re talking $4 – 7 for a bar of soap.

And this is Lush’s logo:

It’s fairly transparent in terms of its designer’s rationale:

• It’s retro and poppy
• It’s round and citrusy, which are meant to make you think fresh, refreshing.
• The comic book style lettering is in-your-face, like Lush is going to save the day.

It doesn’t really fit with their in-store design but that’s OK; they make it work.

Next Up: Don’t Cover Your Eyes

So you’ve met the store and the logo, setting the stage for… the web site!?

Remind you of the store at all?

This is the design that spurred me to write this post. Turns out it’s not the Lush site, but one of many. Lush.com itself is just a (very ugly) gateway to all the local distributors in each country where Lush stores exist. Each local distributor gets to design its own web site; the designs range from horrendous to merely bad.

The Aussie one pictured above is one of the least objectionable. (See it in all its glory.)

From my internet escapades, it seems like almost all of the physical stores look pretty much alike, including US, Canada, and European locations (Lush started in the UK).

Oh No You Din’t

The people behind this web site design have taken something that is an indulgent way to take care of your body and turned it into a web site that looks like it should be selling athletic cups. With, perhaps, the exception of the “Free Sexy…” bit.

And, those colors, ugh. Green and yellow? In those shades? In moderation, please! And their own banner ad on the front page is blindingly contrasty with the yellows, pinks, and fuschias.

Specific Pitfalls:

• Industrial yellow-orange and darkish green; they may be from the logo, but there’s probably a reason the store fronts aren’t decked out in those colors
• Generally speaking, all the colors are far too saturated and contrasty
• Black outlines and shadows do not bring to mind calming, envigorating “me time”
• The sidebar and header design are very constrained and blocky (the little bump out of the menu does nothing to offset this)

Branding Problems:

• There are no echoes of the store’s color schemes, or even the color schemes of the products themselves
• There’s nothing at all to remind visitors of the airy elements of the store
• “Luscious” and “fresh” and “indulgent” are really not going to come to mind (remember: jock straps)

Potential Solutions

It’s not easy to take a bright, pop-style logo like that and reconcile it with the informal, almost earthy style and atmosphere of the stores where Lush actually peddles its goods. But it’s also not impossible. The stores make it work… how could these people make the web sites work?

This is what I would do:

• Design a new color palette for the site that includes a set of warm tans and browns—to mimic the the wood, and color of many of the soap products (which range from white to golden).
• The rest of the color palette would be sampled from some of the products’ colors, including blues, greens, and pinks.
• Set the logo on a white background and offer some sort of color or graphical link between the white area to the actual store front below (not a lot of calm colors go well with bright yellow and green)
• Set all the products on white, with isolated photographs (the products on white backgrounds); consider making the front page a photo of the luscious product merchandising seen in the stores, and when picturing the products, group them together artfully, rather than just one piece
• Echo the store’s signage with a dark slate or dark brown color (not black) and white text announcing special deals and/or product names

Putting my money (or at least my mental CPU cycles) where my mouth is, I took ~10 minutes and came up with this:

My suggestions (and little design example) won’t instantly solve the web site’s problem, but they’re starting points… and, I like to think, a good example of the kinds of things you can use to solve your own difficult design problems.

The Key Lesson…

Just because you use the logo’s colors doesn’t mean your site is properly branded!

You have to keep in mind your brand’s image and all other collateral (including physical things like your stores or offices!) that are used to tell the world your brand’s story.

In other words, you can’t lure people in with the promise of sensual self-care and then hit them over the head with traffic light yellow.

Well, I suppose we’ve seen today that you actually can, but it’s not good for business.

Random Crafty-Girly Knowledge: Bath bombs are basically citric acid in powder form, plus sodium bicarbonate—yes, baking soda—and a little bit of liquid binder, often witch hazel (an astringent made from a plant extract). Plus other goodies to make the color and smell. I’ve made ‘em for presents before. They’re always fun… if you like baths.

Was it good for you, too?

Lemme know! I’m awaiting your input with bated breath.