The New Face of Lush

Hello all! After a little break I'm back this week to talk about the well loved brand Lush and the face-lift it has given to it's in house publication 'the Lush Times'.

Lush is currently in the midst of it's very own face lift. For years it has been at home in the bright, poppy, thrown together area of our design eye, but recently it's been cleaning up it's image, and re-emerging as a more grown up version of itself. A perfect way to demonstrate this is to take a look at it's sweet little newspaper/catalogue 'the Lush Times'. If we rewind to 2012, the Lush Times looked like this...




Here is a brand that is pitching undoubtedly to the younger market. Aimed pretty much entirely at the student/alternative population. It has a distinctly hippy-ish vibe, it's cute and it's vibrant. It stands out as something I'd see sitting comfortably with the Company Magazine readers. It's got that Innocent Smoothie thing going for it. Personally, I love it. It strikes a great balance between informative and selling. I don't feel like I'm being shouted at, and there are snippets of interesting info thrown in the mix.

Fast forward to now, and the Lush Times looks like this...




This is a magazine for grown ups!! A big beefy 116 page magazine for grown ups! Still getting the message across but now, for me, it has lost it's personality. I don't know whether anyone reads Oh Comely magazine, but I feel as though the design time team behind this took their inspiration from that and then missed the point entirely.
I don't get the same warmth from this publication at all and it feels totally alienated from the in-store experience. And the selling pages are just that - big, boring selling pages. Sigh.

I love Lush as a brand but this new face really lets the side down for me. I always used to pick up the Times in store, but  think I'll be giving it a miss from now on.

Svea xo