The creative process can be pretty simple or profoundly complicated as long as the outcome is always eye-catching. And the latest artistic collaborations from Sephora and Yves Saint Laurent deliver awesome limited editions.
Paris Premieres Roses with flashes of colours appearing like floating petals in the bottle.
It is not only the aesthetics, but also the artistic expression which reflects shared characteristics between the artist and beauty brand.
French cosmetic retailer Sephora deems itself as funky as Australian design duo Craig & Karl, with their "cool-laboration'' resulting in the colourful summer 2015 collection of make-up and bath products.
The vibrant palette comes from their overlapping use of crazy colours, with Sephora showing this in its make-up and Craig & Karl injecting pop art design into the packaging.
Known for their quirky illustrations and striking graphic designs, Craig Redman and Karl Maier actually work from opposite sides of the Atlantic — Redman in New York and Maier in London.
The creative process is not hindered by the long distance and different time zones as the artists can easily exchange ideas over the internet.
Combining simple forms such as dots and stripes, their punchy patterns are meant to whimsically carry simple messages. The graphic designers' sense of humour puts them on the same wavelength as Sephora, whose playful retail concept encourages experimenting with the spectrum of make-up shades.
Emerging Japanese graphic artist and painter Houxo Que works differently from Craig & Karl but with the same zest for employing bright colours.
Que's collaboration with Yves Saint Laurent Beaute had him splattering colours onto walls and floors, using his hands or screen-printing tools, for his interpretation of a modern rose. His objective was to erase the innocence and radicalise the rose to create a new flower that is neither classical nor romantic.
Que's creative process involved painting in the dark, using fluorescent pigments with flickering UV light for the graffiti-like artwork evoking the rose, with the juxtaposed fluorescent colours ricocheting in superimposed layers to create a 3D effect.
The painting was then digitally manipulated by delayering and abstracting pulses of colour, with the flashes of colour appearing like petals floating in the bottle of Paris Premieres Roses perfume, whose box also features blooming floral artwork.
