Vaen Beauty

Visual Identity - Packaging

AE Cosmetics, a Chinese cosmetics brand predominantly target a mass market consumer and sell mostly for small margins in retail. The rise of WeChat in China as a channel to market and for selling direct opened up an opportunity to create a new brand that targeted a more affluent middle class consumer looking for niche brands and of course a higher return for AE.

Clear worked closely with the founder Ellie Liu to develop the brand strategy including a better understanding of the target consumer, the competition and naming before developing the identity suite, packaging design, digital presence for WeChat, brand book and guideline.

The brand needed to target a beauty lover with a higher disposable income than the existing AE consumer but who had attitude and a need to express their originality. The idea of discovering a rich seam of beauty that can be explored and surfaced became the driving idea behind the brand and led the whole naming and visual identity phase.

VAEN, a play on vanity but incorporating the masterbrand became the name.
The symbol captures both - the spirit of AE which comminicates to the western market but locked up with the Chinese characters for ‘unique’.

The brand launched in 2020 in both the UK and China markets.