The Sparkle of Summer: e.l.f. Beauty x Poppi Campaign Concept

The Sparkle of Summer is a campaign concept that reimagines lip gloss as a fizzy, sensory experience inspired by soda. Rooted in the culturally driven, playful identity of e.l.f. Beauty, this project explores what happens when beauty intersects with refreshment culture through a collaboration with Poppi, a modern prebiotic soda brand.

The project was developed through iterative visual exploration, building a system inspired by gloss, effervescence, and light. Hero imagery and macro compositions highlight texture and shine, while social-first campaign visuals emphasize bold color and movement. Packaging concepts draw from soda aesthetics, blending familiar beverage cues with contemporary beauty branding.

Process

Elf in futuristic beauty trends mockup

While exploring beauty trends and futuristic mockups, I noticed a strong visual pattern emerging around glow, translucency, and bubble-like forms. This naturally led me to think about carbonation and soda as a sensory and visual extension of that idea. Knowing how popular Poppi has become as a modern soda brand helped ground the concept in something culturally relevant, allowing the idea to feel both imaginative and familiar.

Poppi sodas

Gemini AI was used to explore cultural and visual trends and refine campaign direction, while Canva AI supported rapid ideation, moodboard generation, and early visual compositions. Iterative experimentation helped translate ideas of carbonation, gloss, and movement into a cohesive visual system.

Experimentation included consistently playing with key phrases of:

  • “Exploring carbonation through bubble overlays and gloss textures”

  • “Testing color palettes inspired by citrus sodas and artificial flavor tones”

  • “Refining typography to feel bold, youthful, and digitally native”

This project explores how cultural trends can be translated into visual systems that feel immediate and engaging. It reinforced the importance of balancing playful experimentation with clear brand alignment, which is how brands like e.l.f. Beauty and Poppi
consistently set the tone for our generation: bold, playful, and deeply tuned into culture.

© Concept project. e.l.f. Beauty and Poppi are referenced for non-commercial purposes.