Case Study
Designing an end-to-end booking and academy platform for a permanent makeup artist — from first discovery call through launch.
A clean, premium digital home for Tanya Hristova's permanent makeup academy — built to attract serious students and showcase professional excellence.
Overview
Context
Tanya Hristova is an established PMU (permanent makeup) artist based in Bulgaria. With years of hands-on practice and a growing reputation, she wanted to formalise her teaching work into a proper academy — offering structured courses for aspiring PMU professionals.
At the start of this project, her online presence consisted of an Instagram account and a basic booking link. Students were reaching out through DMs, and there was no central place to learn about her courses, read testimonials, or complete a structured enrolment process.
Problem
Tanya needed a digital platform that matched the premium quality of her work — one that would communicate expertise, allow potential students to self-qualify and enrol, and reduce the administrative load of manually handling every enquiry.
The key tension: PMU is a deeply personal craft. The site had to feel warm and human while still being structured enough for a professional course offering with real conversion goals.
"I want students to arrive already inspired — not just looking for a price list."
— Tanya Hristova, Client BriefResearch
I conducted a competitive analysis of PMU academies and beauty training platforms across Europe, and ran two interview sessions with Tanya to map her student persona, typical enquiry flow, and content goals. Three key insights shaped the direction:
Trust is visual
Students decide in the first 8 seconds whether an artist is "at their level." Portfolio imagery and real testimonials are the primary trust signals — before any course detail.
Course clarity converts
Platforms with clear course structure, duration, what-you-will-learn, and prerequisite info consistently outperformed those that buried details behind a contact form.
Mobile-first enquiries
Over 80 % of traffic to beauty-niche sites comes from mobile. Booking flows and forms must be frictionless on a small screen or students drop off immediately.
Process
Discovery & content mapping
I worked with Tanya to define her site's information architecture — what content existed, what needed creating, and what the priority hierarchy was for a new visitor. We used FigJam to map out page structure and user journeys together.
Low-fidelity wireframes
I produced a set of lo-fi wireframes for the five core pages: Home, About, Courses, Gallery, and Contact. These were reviewed and iterated on with the client before any visual design work began.
Visual identity & moodboarding
Together we explored the visual direction through two moodboards — one leaning warm and tactile, the other cooler and editorial. The client gravitated toward a hybrid: refined neutrals, elegant typography, with warm gold accents.
High-fidelity UI design
I built the full design in Figma — desktop and mobile variants for all pages, a component library, and an annotated handoff document for the developer. Accessibility and colour contrast were validated throughout.
Review, polish & handoff
Two rounds of client feedback refined copy tone, image selection, and CTA hierarchy. Final assets, fonts, and spacing tokens were packaged for the developer along with interactive prototypes of the key booking flow.
Design
The layout follows a clear content hierarchy — bold hero that communicates expertise, course cards with structured details, and a streamlined enquiry form that removes every unnecessary field.
Home — Hero
Courses Page
Contact / Enrol
Outcome
Three months post-launch, Tanya shared the following metrics from her analytics and enrolment records:
Reflection
This project reinforced for me how important content strategy is before any visual design begins. Without a clear map of what Tanya was trying to communicate — and to whom — I could have easily produced something visually polished but structurally weak.
The biggest design challenge was the tension between "inspirational portfolio" and "professional academy." The solution was a clear page hierarchy: lead with credibility and artistry, then guide the visitor toward structured course information.
If I were to extend this project, I would add a student portal — a logged-in space where enrolled students access materials, submit practice work, and communicate with their instructor. This would complete the platform's value loop and reduce even more admin overhead.
Working closely with the client throughout each stage (rather than disappearing and returning with a finished design) made reviews faster and the final result much closer to what she had in mind.