Three designers take on the challenge of creating a website dedicated to gentlemen, their beards, and their moustaches.
Left to right: Anna Debenham, Robby Ingebretsen and Thuy Pham
Beards like HTML, CSS, Sass, and coffee are corner stones of the web design industry. With the beard held in such high regard, net magazine – in its regular Design Challenged section – set three designers the following web design brief:
"We'd like you to design a site that will help a gentleman care for his beard or moustache. It could give grooming advice, sell moustache wax or hand-crafted beard oil, or maybe act as a community site where facial hair enthusiasts trade pictures of their creations."
Here are the designers' concepts and mockups.
Trim.mr
Anna Debenham is a freelance frontend developer. She told us: "Trim.mr is inspired by Steepster, a site for people who drink tea. On Steepster, people talk about and rate the teas they drink. Trim.mr has the same model, but it's for beards: people rate and discuss the products they use and barbers they go to."
"A lot of 'gentleman' websites look similar, and I wanted Trim.mr to feel more laid-back and less like it's a niche club."
"I moved away from browns, reds and blacks and gave it a soft and fun style that feels open to everyone, including partners of bearded gentlemen looking for gift ideas. I designed and built it in the browser because I'm more comfortable working with CSS than graphics software."
Hello Stache
Thuy Pham is a visual designer from San Francisco. She told us this about her design: "The concept behind Hello Stache is unique. No beard or moustache is the same – the person behind it makes it different. This is the reasoning behind the design of the random white and red boxes. The idea is that each time the page is refreshed, the photos and content will change."
"To be able to participate fully in the website, the user would have to sign up for an account, which would give them the option of submitting their own article to be published on the site, as well enabling them to start new forum topics. The site would also have a mobile version that will enable the user to do the same thing on their computer and their mobile."
Stachekit
Robby Ingebretsen runs web design and development studio Pixel Lab. He told us this about Stachekt: "Maybe it's because of 70s Steve Jobs, but something just feels right about selling artisan moustache grooming products online.
That's the idea behind StacheKit: a monthly dose of grooming goods, delivered to your door in a tidy package. It's just what you need for 30 days of upper-lip taming; to take your 'stache from soup strainer to fine facial furniture."
"The result is a digital ‘try before you buy' for your 'stache. We're surely not the first moustache-builder out there, but we believe easy engagement plus an element of fun, builds quick brand interest."
See yourself in net mag
If you'd like to appear in net magazine's Design Challenge, and take on one of the team's creative briefs, send a Tweet with your a link to your portfolio site to @netmag.
