Fruity
An LGBTQ+ Styling Service and Fashion Community
About Us
We are Ha Tran and MeiLi Carling, two MFA students in Graphic and Interactive Design at Tyler School of Art and Architecture. We’re both queer, Asian-American designers, and we wanted to collaborate on a project highlighting queer joy and personal expression through fashion. We designed Fruity, a styling service that helps LGBTQ+ people express themselves through fashion, and connect with a community that supports their journey to finding an authentic personal style.
The Problem
Fashion is a mode of self-expression that can be a tool for building confidence and exploring personal identity. However, not everyone has equal access to clothing that affirms their identity and fits their body. A binary conceptualization of ender is often built into the concept of fashion. In diverse queer communities, where the concept of gender is always in flux, this is limiting and harmful. People exploring a more fluid or non-conforming approach to gender expression may find that traditional fashion norms don’t apply to them, and this is reflected in the lack of styling services that cater specifically to queer identities. In addition, LGBTQ+ people may face other intersecting barriers to accessing clothing that feels joyful and authentic to wear. Examples include a lack of options for plus size clothing, fit issues when wearing gendered clothing as a trans or gender-nonconforming person, and limited representation of non-Eurocentric styles in fashion.
Our Solution
Fruity is a digital styling service that is made by and for queer people, which pairs the user with a fashion expert who is knowledgeable and empathetic to their specific goals and needs. In addition, Fruity provides an online fashion community where LGBTQ+ people can find inspiration, connections, and support from one another through photo posts, comments, and mood boards. Fruity is about queer joy and expression through fashion and community.
Research
In order to validate the problem and inform the best pathways toward an effective solution, we did extensive research into both the market and the audience for this project. We evaluated existing brands, conducted a survey, and built user personas to ensure our designs would serve the needs of our users and provide a joyful experience.
Market Research
A dive into competitor analysis reveals a lack of consideration for multiple gender expressions within existing styling brands. While aiming to fill the gap left by many of these services, we also observed design decisions that they had made successfully. Separating each competitor into categories that represent different features we find most important, we were able to identify and gain inspiration from the best attributes of existing platforms, while strategizing to solve problems specific to a queer audience.
Survey
The next important step in the research process was listening to what our community had to say about this issue. We created a survey that garnered 96 total responses, and generated a wealth of both qualitative and quantitative data that supported our mission. The survey also provided values and user goals to inform our design decisions.
Aside from confirming some of our hypotheses about our target audience, the survey responses also further elucidated the problem we found in the existing market — the fashion industry’s disregard for diverse bodies and unique self-expressions. The most valuable pieces of survey data were those that revealed exactly what community members wanted to get out of a styling experience: an inclusive model that caters to all modes of expression and is sensitive to each person’s unique needs.
User Personas
The final step of our research was to synthesize our findings and create two user personas to represent the two primary features of our product: the styling service and the community hub.
Process
Mood Board
The foundation of this project lies within the queer community and queer expression. Fruity draws visual inspiration from the colorful and joyful ways queer people have presented themselves through fashion in both the present and throughout history.
Brand Development
The brand employs a typographic logo and a system of illustrated icons. Our logo consists of hand-drawn letterforms that allude to the fluidity and diversity of human bodies. The name Fruity is a tongue-in-cheek callback to queer vernacular, which also provided inspiration for a set of icons that make reference to both queerness (the limp-wrist) and literal fruit imagery. Our palette is also derived from fruit colors, communicating a playful and approachable brand personality.
User Flows
A breakdown of the 3 user goals directed us to create 3 different user flows:
- A quiz flow to match the user with a stylist.
- A styling flow to help the user select a pricing package, and navigate their interaction with their stylist.
- A social media flow for the user to connect with their community, browse outfit inspirations, and create their own moodboards.
Paper Prototypes
Wireframes
Final Results
Style Tile
Our final brand consists of a responsive logo in 3 states, a set of 4 icons, and a palette of 6 primary colors. The typefaces we picked are Unbounded and Cy, both echoing the playful energy of the brand.
Design System
To ensure consistency and usability in our interactive prototype, we created a design system with tints of our brand colors, a typographic hierarchy of our fonts, and interactive components such as buttons and controls. We tested our color palette for color contrast accessibility.
Prototype
Finally, we prototyped the Fruity app in Figma. This video shows three user flows: completing an onboarding quiz to be matched with your stylist, choosing a stylist and signing up for a plan, and creating a mood board for inspiration in the community section of the app.
Click here to access our working Figma prototype!
Conclusion
Through our research and development of a brand, design system, and prototype for Fruity, we were able to gain valuable insights into the specific styling needs of LGBTQ+ people. In the future, we’re interested in expanding on this idea to include events that would enhance the community building side of the service, such as clothing swaps and fashion shows. Most of all, creating Fruity was a practice in elevating queer joy and expression through design thinking.
Sources & Credits
https://www.reddit.com/r/lesbianfashionadvice/
https://unsplash.com/@canweallgo
https://genderspectrum.vice.com/
https://affecttheverb.com/disabledandhere/
https://www.instagram.com/mmdizzie
Created at Tyler School of Art and Architecture for the Branding for UX: Design Systems course in Fall 2023, with instruction by Courtney Spencer.
Photography Credits
VICE Gender Spectrum Collection, Allgo, Disabled and Here, Mars Dixon
From Pexels: Allan Franca Carmo, Ayaka Kato, Bruce Taylor, Gideon Osman, Laura Garcia, Rachel Jackson, RF Studio, Oyebade Michael, RDNE Stock Project, Slaytina, Tatiana Castrillon, Jeff Denlea, Jennifer Enujiugha, Pavel Danilyuk, Hieu Ho, Shvets Production, Teddy Tavan, Godisable Jacob, Hanuman Photo Studio, Ogo Johnson
& our lovely partners Audrey & Amanda ❤
