Hasta La Ideas

Here’s a great example of identifying a need, and designing a solution to meet it. Without doing any actual design work.

The target consumer here is people who wear makeup. During my time working in a photography studio, I learned that professional makeup stations must cast light on the model’s face from 360 degrees on the vertical plane. Which is to say, the underside of their chin and the sides of their cheeks must receive as much light as their forehead, in order for the makeup artist to properly do their job.

Most domestic bathrooms, which is where most ordinary people apply makeup, do not have this set-up. The lighting is typically overhead, which might be fine for civilians, but is undesirable for Instagram models. Thus the prosumer version of a professional makeup station is a $25 mirror ringed with a light source, like this one:

But one clever entrepreneur, “global beauty educator” Rachel Vicknair, came up with a way to add 360 illumination to one’s existing bathroom mirror or any mirror on the road. All she did was source a bunch of cordless LED lights, like these…

…add some suction cups to the back, package four of them in a bag, add some branding, and boom: Vicknair launched Leopara, an $80 kit of “makeup lighting that goes with you.” You can stick them to your mirror at home, or toss them in a bag to take on a trip. Anywhere there’s a mirror becomes your pro makeup station.

Minimal, if any, design work required. Targeted at people’s vanity, so they’re going to sell like hotcakes.

Do I begrudge Vicknair? Not at all–I’m jealous I didn’t think of it first. She’s going to be rich, if she isn’t already.