Reimagining the Face Painting Experience for Young-at-Heart Adults

Face Painting isn't just for kids, but adults are often hesitant about getting their face painted.

I started “Lina's Face Painting” in 2016 with a simple palette that grew into a weekend venture. As a smile-maker, my mission is to build an inclusive experience to bring face painting to everyone, including those who are young at heart.

Challenge

The event entertainment industry primarily focused on kids. It's rare to see adults participate. I took on the mission to reimagine the face painting experience for people of all ages by redesigning the brand identity, website, business cards, and the service experience.

Outcome

The rebrand introduced me to 22 events in 3 months, where 30 adults (and over 230 kids) were painted. As a result, the monthly revenue increased by 3x and referral rates by 2x compared to 2016 when I first started.

Discovering the Gap

What's everyone offering?

Many companies in Canada offer entertainment services and rentals for children between pre-school and elementary school. Some offerings include mascots, bubble shows, bouncy castles, just to name a few.

Most businesses are family-owned

Most businesses are family-owned with 3+ employees, offering popular options such as face painting, balloon twisting, and magic shows. Most entertainers are millennials, moms, and dads whose children are in high-school/post-secondary.

Untapped Segment

While most services listed are not labeled for children, only children participate in them. Other age groups (parents, grandparents, siblings, etc.) are often observing or taking photos for the younger ones.

Opportunity

As body painting (such as temporary tattoos, henna) is gaining popularity, there's no reason for adults not to participate. As someone with a fine arts background, I'm curious about exploring non-traditional designs for young adults and adults who are young-at-heart. As a Gen Z myself, I'm well-positioned to connect with guests of all ages.

Validating Assumptions

What's stopping adults from getting their face painted?

To answer these questions, I spoke directly to the guests while painting them:

1. What brought you to the event today?
2. What grade are you going to?
3. What do you want to get painted as?
4. Is this your first time getting face painted?

Turns out, most of my guests were girls younger than 10. Was this a coincidence?

I wanted to get a holistic understanding of the market. Over the next 5 events, I captured the demographic. Then, I looked at how face painting services are advertised and collected testimonials from other face painters.

Research Methodology

Findings

"My son will happily let me paint on his arm in a non-cartoon style, and anything that looks like a real tattoo."

Another face painter

"[Entertaining adults is] not my job! That's why they hire clowns and magicians."

Another face painter

"I haven't gotten one [face paint] since I was a kid!"

Mom of a 5-year-old

With an obvious demand, how might we make the face painting experience as exciting for adults as it is for kids?

Current Customer Experience

It was crucial to first analyze each touch point in the customer journey, in order to improve the overall experience for adults.

I noticed that the booking process has the most friction. Adults who reach out to me are often wondering about the paint safety, how many hours to book, the booking process, and whether all the guests can be painted during the booked hours.

Opportunities

1. Inform safety, and booking procedures through the website
2. Acquire new customers through Instagram
3. Easy referral through business cards
4. Optimize the painting experience for efficiency

Metrics

Web Design

I wanted the website to be visual-heavy and embody the words playful, authentic, inclusive, and safe, while offering an extremely simple booking process. The gallery will consist of authentic photos of our guests with diverse backgrounds. The copywriting will emphasize "inclusion".

Wireframes

Challenges & Constraints

Unfortunately, I could not implement all the designs due to technical limitations. Moreover, August to November is a peak season for face painters, so it was important to get the website up quickly and tested with users.

Home Page

Service Page: Face Painting

Service Page: Henna & Temporary Tattoos

About Page

Business Cards

Most customers come from word of mouth. It's important to have memorable business cards that parents want to keep and share.

Horizontal vs. Vertical

Horizontal is a familiar layout to our audience, making it easier to navigate information. Vertical layouts are more modern and attract a younger audience.

Hybrid

The back is horizontal to help guests parse information quickly, the front is vertical to stand out from traditional face painting services. I received feedback from our clients that they prefer this design overall. A little unordinary and fun, but still user-friendly!

Instagram Strategy

Pictures paint a thousand words, especially when Instagram is often the first touchpoint of potential customers (moms).

The business page focuses on showing diversity in age. Not just kids, but any age, gender, and occasions through unstaged, natural, genuine photos.

The Painting Experience

It's still paramount to prioritize speed. I streamlined the setup and painting process to reduce wait times and clear lines faster, improving the experience for everyone.

Results

• Events attended: 22 events in 3 months
• Total faces painted: 266, including 30 adults (11% of total)
• Revenue: 3x the monthly revenue from 2016
• Referral Rate: 4 events out of 22 were referred by previous customers (doubling from the previous year)
• Instagram: Grew to 234 followers from 0

Next Steps

This project was about challenging assumptions and designing an inclusive experience that brought smiles to people of all ages. See more work at @facepaintbylina.