Solar Buddies

Creating a fun and friendly visual identity for the UK's first child-friendly sunscreen applicator

Services

Brand development
Website design
Design for print
Online marketing

The brief

Welcome to Solar Buddies, the UK’s first child-friendly sunscreen applicator. Kelli & Laura, the inventors of the Solar Buddies, approached us with this unique product concept, but had no brand identity to be able to promote it. Working with Kelli & Laura, we assisted them in creating a brand that is bold, fun and friendly that in turn helped them sell their Solar Buddies to customers all over the world.

RESEARCH & INSPIRATION
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USER TESTING
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As part of the research and design process, Kelli & Laura invited a number of parents of young children to join in a focus group and give their opinions on the design and functionality of the Solar Buddies. They were also asked to provide suggestions on topics of the school workshops that were to be introduced into local primary schools.

SCHOOL WORKSHOPS
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The Solar Buddies have been designed so that young children can apply sunscreen easily and without fuss. So what better way to test this than by taking the Solar Buddies into schools and getting the students to give them a go! This was also a great opportunity to give the sunsafe workshops a test run before the lesson plans were rolled out nationally.

THEORY
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The Solar Buddies USP is that it is the first product on the market that enables children to apply sunscreen easily and mess free. The identity had to appeal to young children, as they were the people that were going to be carrying it around in their backpacks and using it on the playground in school time. Talk about peer pressure!

The identity also had to be bold and visible and make an impact on parents and adults, who were going to be the core audience purchasing the product. With the final logo designed and signed off, this needed to be continued throughout POS packaging and literature. An ecommerce website also needed to be built to increase brand awareness and allow customers to easily purchase their Solar Buddies online.

THE WEBSITE
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Once the identity and offline marketing literature was complete, we then needed to transfer the identity online. We designed and built a website that retains the fun and friendly personality of the brand and tells the Solar Buddies story. Another important element is that it has ecommerce facilities built in so that website visitors can easily purchase products online and securely purchase using paypal or a debit/credit card.