Project Overview
Hair And The Blog is a Black beauty trade publication covering industry news, trends, education, events and the professionals who shape the culture. It is also the home of The Industry Awards Show, a black-tie celebration of beauty professionals held at the Mimi Ohio Theatre in Playhouse Square, Cleveland.
STS Media designed and built the new hairandtheblog.com: a magazine-style publication, an awards show website and a public voting platform in one WordPress build, structured to grow into a full industry directory.
The Challenge
Phase one had a hard deadline: launch the website and open public voting for The Industry Awards Show. That meant collecting nominations, confirming nominees, running fifteen public ballots fairly, and selling the show, all while the site also needed to read as a credible trade publication.
Voting also had to hold up under real traffic. Thousands of fans would be voting from phones, shared wifi and mobile networks, and every vote and email needed to be counted correctly.
The Solution
STS Media built the platform on WordPress with Elementor, using custom content types for professionals, awards and nominations so every nominee, category and listing is connected. A public nomination form feeds a review queue, and a nominee confirmation form rebuilt the client’s Google Form on-site, with branded confirmation emails and private document storage.
Voting ran on dedicated ballots for each category with results hidden from the public and limits on repeat voting. When early testing showed real voters on shared networks being blocked, and cached pages showing the wrong confirmation, STS Media fixed both before they could cost the show votes. When voting closed, every vote prompt across the site was retired the same night.
Key Website Features
Magazine-style homepage and editorial category pages.
Industry Awards Show page with event details, award categories, host, partners, FAQ and Get Tickets links to Playhouse Square.
Fifteen public voting ballots plus an honoree category, with results hidden until the show.
Public nominee submission form with a moderation queue.
Nominee confirmation form with branded emails to nominees and admins and private storage for uploaded documents.
Professional and business directory with state and city filters, license badges and maps, ready for listings.
Hair Gallery and a login portal where approved professionals can manage their own profiles and looks.
Newsletter popup connected to Mailchimp, with voter emails synced to the client’s CRM and common email typos corrected automatically.
Native sponsor placements and partner recognition, including Moroccanoil as Green Carpet Sponsor.
SEO setup, security hardening, accessibility and contrast fixes, and automated browser testing.
Mobile-first layout for fans voting from their phones.
Design Direction
The site is designed to read like a trade magazine and feel like a show. The palette is black, white and a single neon green taken from the brand, used for one primary action per section and never as a background. Bold, tightly set headlines give the homepage a show-poster energy, while inside pages use Bodoni Moda for a fashion-editorial voice, with Archivo for clean, readable body text.
Two connected design systems carry the brand: “Industry Press” for the homepage, header and footer, and “The Issue” for inside pages. Color contrast was checked against accessibility standards throughout.
Content Strategy
Every page was built around one of three visitor goals: read the publication, support a nominee, or attend the show. Voting pages were kept focused on a single action, nomination and confirmation forms asked only for what the show needed, and the show page answered the questions guests ask before buying a ticket.
Each voter and subscriber became part of the publication’s audience, giving Hair And The Blog a mailing list it can keep using long after awards season.
Outcome
Public voting closed with 16,714 votes across fifteen categories, close to 4,000 unique voter emails were captured, and 88 nominees confirmed through the on-site form. The client’s CRM grew from 21 contacts to more than 1,700.
The result is a publication, awards platform and audience-building tool in one site, with the directory, gallery and professional portal in place for the next phase.
Services Provided by STS Media
Platform planning and phased build strategy
Website design and two-part design system
WordPress and Elementor development
Custom content types for professionals, awards and nominations
Public voting setup and vote integrity fixes
Nomination and nominee confirmation forms
Branded transactional email setup
Directory, gallery and professional portal build
Mailchimp and CRM integration
Sponsor and partner placements
Event page and ticketing links
SEO setup
Security hardening
Accessibility and contrast review
Automated browser testing
Mobile-responsive design
