Essie Color Boutique

Vending Machine

Ladies, ladies - calm down!  As America’s nail salon expert for over thirty years, Essie is the first luxury nail polish brand to have its very own vending machine.  This project evolved dramatically from the concept to the final product - take a look!

Essie asked for a design concept that was bold and demanded attention.  They loved the giant bottle and the rotating Essie Nail Studio.

The Essie Design Studio takes the familiar paint swatch concept and brings it to Essie’s exciting range of polishes.  Each swatch consists of recommendations by Essie salon pros with a QR code on the back for an easy scan and purchase on the machine or from the Essie Design Studio mobile app.  (Note the tactile push buttons to select the colors and serve as color swatches - one my favorite details!)

A highly integrated mobile app, Essie Design Studio, lets you come up with your own color combinations and style - then buy the colors you need for your design right on the spot!  Share your design with friends and the Essie Design Studio Community.

A sampling of the Essie Design Studio polish swatches.

After much exploration and great feedback from the team at Essie, the machine’s aesthetic transformed into something more subtle, yet still sassy.  My favorite part of the design are the shelves - unfortunately they didn’t make it into the final version.

Creating this graphic for the back of the machine was a labor of love (and a challenge for a colorblind designer such as myself)!

photo credit Emma Shannon

photo credit Tara Elizabeth

The end result at the Shops at Mission Viejo in California.  
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