On paper, Aviva has everything a spray tan artist (or artist-to-be) could want in a company. Biotech roots, clean ingredient lists, global distribution, a 20+ years running academy, lifetime support, starter kits, and serious loyalty from professionals. Yet online, that story was diluted.
The core problem divided into three clear layers:
💜 Branding
The site did not have a clear aura. It sat somewhere between educational word vomit and misdirected beauty catalog. It lacked the calm, premium, editorial energy that their science and reputation deserved.
💎 Conversion driven elements
The existing structure did not move someone from curiosity to commitment. Aviva aims to turn their students into long-term buyers of their product line. Focus on the benefits of getting the Aviva certificate were not apparent in any one area of the site. It did not show ROI, it did not dramatize the pain of cheap tans, and it did not clearly connect training with income.
📓 Reference collection
Aviva serves aspiring spray tan artists, existing salon owners, and mobile entrepreneurs who care about safety, results, and business growth. The pages did not speak directly to that working professional who might be trying to decide if this is a real, serious path or another side hustle trend.
The visual direction had to hold 4 qualities at once: Clean, Science Led, Beauty Conscious, Trusted Professional Training.
I built the brand system from scratch for this project.
⋆˚࿔ Type
I chose headline fonts with an editorial, confident feel that nods to luxury beauty and medspa websites. For body text I chose a modern, neutral typeface that stays legible for long educational content like class descriptions.
I treated type not as labels but as staging. Each level has a job in the storytelling. Headlines held the main promise, and subheadings were written to orient you. Button and chip styles allow the "action" to have a visual language of its own.
🎨 Colour
I explored richer accent tones and more saturated palettes that leaned into the beauty side. On early versions the page looked more like a DTC self tan brand or skincare line. That felt wrong for a professional academy. Through feedback and self critique I stripped the palette back.
The final direction uses neutrals as the base and reserves accent colors for very specific moments. The colour works like lighting in a studio. Soft and calm across most of the page, with brief flares where the user should pay attention or feel energized. This change allowed the copy and imagery to carry more weight without fighting a loud background.
⿻ Layout
I defined grids, spacing, and section rhythms that feel similar to medspas and upscale education sites. Enough breathing room to feel premium. Enough density at certain points to feel like you are getting real information. I used staggered sections, anchored CTAs, and visual breaks between heavy proof and storytelling to prevent visual fatigue.
Tools, Automation, & Workflow Innovation
Instead of iterating every possible pattern myself, I let Lovable give me a spread of structural options. I had multiple ideas I needed to surf through; a bad tan horror gallery, sheets test, income generator charts, Aviva hotline visualized, etc. I treated those outputs as raw material, not final design. I pulled out the patterns that matched Aviva's needs, then tore them apart and rebuilt them with the new ideas I had for the design direction. Automation does not replace creativity, but gives it another direction of where to spend time and energy to create.
Figma Make became the backbone for batch updating. If I decided that body text needed a different size, or primary buttons needed more breathing room, or that a certain accent colour should be toned down, I used Figma Make to apply that across all relevant frames.
The goal was to avoid the kind of work that does not move the needle. Automating low value iteration gave me more time to experiment with what Aviva's clients were going to actively look for on the page.
For Aviva I wrote the copy with the same seriousness as the layout. The voice had to feel like a senior trainer.
I rewrote the site voice to be clear, straightforward, and benefit heavy. The heroes talk about launching a spray tan business, earning back your class in weeks, attracting loyal clients, and building a reputation with clean formulas.
I wrote supporting sections around specific breakdowns of how the formulas, the academy, the support, and the business tools work together. The training sections explain what you actually learn, not just that you get a certificate. The ROI sections show how many clients it takes to pay off a class and how the skill compounds over time.
Copy that acknowledges those inevitable new-artist fears by:
Framing Aviva's clean ingredient lists and hypoallergenic formulas as insurance for their reputation
Highlighting lifetime support as a safety net when something goes wrong
Calling out that you do not need a salon to start, that mobile is valid, and that Aviva can help you build that path
POC clients are welcome with Aviva products' variety of shade ranges!
My rule was simple: if a line did not reduce mental load, ease a fear, clarify a benefit, or move someone one step closer to enrolling, it did not belong on the page. The copy had to do multiple things at once. Everything on the page spoke to make the brand feel premium and make the decision feel simple.
Design Refinement & Feedback Process
The major pass the feedback was clustered around two themes; turn up the sense of premium trust, and make educational info on the page feel calmer (while still selling).
The louder beauty tones we tried early were making the brand feel more like a consumer product line than a professional academy. I reduced the accent use to very specific areas. Primary CTAs, trust badges, and key revenue proof. Everything else moved toward softer neutrals and more air in between sections that were text/visual heavy.
I used that newfound quiet on the page to put more emphasis on the science and outcome sections. I made sure the brand value props surfaced visually instead of buried in paragraphs. I refined the ROI modules so they were faster to understand. Fewer numbers, more direct "this is how fast this can pay you back".
I also tuned the creative sections. Any section that was more conceptual, had to earn its place. I removed anything that felt clever for its own sake and kept what directly connected to Aviva's differentiators. No orange streaks, no sheet stains, ten day natural fades, clients who rebook because they trust the results.
What Was Hard
The hardest part of the Aviva project was nailing the brand's unique benefits (product selling AND providing certification training) by just the homepage design.
Spray tanning sits in a strange intersection. There is the world of drugstore and influencer self tan brands that are fun and glamorous. There is the world of clinical dermatology that looks sterile. There is the world of generic training sites that feel like course mills. Aviva is none of those. The challenge was to make them feel specific and like the inevitable choice in that landscape.
The homepage had to answer two skeptical questions at once. Why this brand and why online training at all. I had to show that Aviva is not just another way to get a tan, it is a way to get a business, and that the internet is the right place to learn that.
Every decision about type, colour, density, imagery, copy, and section order was about that aura. Beauty oriented but not vain. Serious about income without feeling exploitative. It took multiple iterations and a lot of subtraction to get there.
This project deepened how I think about branding and CRO for service-based beauty and education.
It taught me how to design for three layers of trust at once. Trust in the product on the skin, trust in the teacher at the front of the class, and trust that this path can materially change someone's income. That is more complex than a simple "sign up for a subscription" flow. It requires layering proof, empathy, and clarity in a way that feels natural.
Working with Lovable, and Figma Make in combination also reinforced something I felt on other projects. Working endlessly on iterations that won't make the final cut but still take up the majority of the project timeline isn't impressive. Don't get me wrong, tools and automation are not impressive on their own either. They are valuable when they free up time for the work only a human can do. Things like understanding fear, deciding which proof matters more, and arranging the story so that someone feels seen.
On Aviva I used those tools to experiment with unconventional section ideas, while compressing system changes into less time. That let me spend more hours on voice, finding the right moments to show science and the right moments to show glow, and on visualizing ROI in a way that feels realistic.
The project also reminded me that CRO is not a template you paste onto brands. It is a language you translate into their story. Aviva is not "just spray tans." They are clean science, business-income building education, and long term partnership. The site had to say that, visually and verbally, from the first glance.
Finally it pushed me further toward the version of practice I care about. Moving fluidly between art direction, brand strategy, copy, and analytics. Making decisions that are beautiful and measurable at the same time.