The brief

GCM (Global Creative Masters) set out to be a network of teachers who lead their specialisations in the beauty industry. The project combined an international system for confirming and rating the qualifications of beauty masters, the search and accreditation of teachers, mentors and trainers, and an online university with leading mentors from the industry. On its own site GCM described a six-level training system and an international GCM diploma.

That makes GCM a two-sided platform. Masters come to teach, share their knowledge and build a personal brand. Students come for lessons, courses and webinars they can take at a convenient time, and for a qualification they can confirm. The site had to serve both groups from one catalogue and give the GCM team a way to manage lessons on its own.

Beauty education as a category runs on trust in the teacher and on proof of skill. People compare instructors, course levels and the certificate they receive at the end, so the structure of the catalogue carries as much weight as the visual design.

What we did

Research and prototypes

Market analysis, followed by prototypes of the site's pages.

Design of the public site

The home page mockup opens with a dark header, the GCM pixel logo, a "Directions" menu and course search. The navigation leads to About, How it works, Become a teacher, Corporate training and Qualification confirmation. Under the headline "With GCM you can learn anything! For everyone. From professionals. With certification." come category tiles for hairdressing, make-up, cosmetology, microblading, permanent make-up, lash, brow and nail modelling, manicure and pedicure, then course cards, a carousel of instructors and a "Teach on GCM!" call to teachers.

Master and Student accounts, lesson cards

We designed personal accounts for Masters and for Students, separate Master and Student sections, and a "Lesson card" that presents each lesson.

Build and admin panel

Layout of animated elements and pop-up forms, programming, adaptation to different devices, quick navigation between pages, SEO optimisation, and an admin panel for managing lessons. Functionality and usability were tested.

The catalogue in production

A web-archive copy of gcm.guru from January 2022 shows the platform in use, in Russian. Its "Directions" menu grouped courses by level: level 6 for basic skills, level 5 for salon and commercial work, level 4 for fashion, level 3 for trend techniques, plus art techniques. The disciplines ran from women's and men's haircuts, barbering and hair tattoo to colouring, styling and evening hair, hair and skin care, extensions and braiding, manicure, nail modelling and nail design, pedicure, make-up (including airbrush and face and body art), brows, lash extensions and permanent make-up, including areola restoration and scar camouflage.

The same page promised students unlimited access to lessons, learning from the best teachers and mentors, study at a convenient time and qualification confirmation, and invited teachers with "Teach on GCM! Earn money. Share your knowledge. Build your personal brand." Registration and login ran through a pop-up form with VK, OK and Facebook sign-in. The footer had Company, Community and Support columns.

Support

The mockup footers carry the mark "Development and support Marketing MIX". The credit, with a link to the studio, stayed on the live site in every archived copy we checked: January 2022, March 2024 and December 2024.

Where it stands today

  • September 2017: first web-archive capture of gcm.guru. The design mockups carry the years 2017 and 2019.
  • August 2018: the site describes the six-level training system, teacher accreditation and the international GCM diploma.
  • January 2022: Russian interface with the full level-based catalogue and the studio credit, footer "© GCM, 2022".
  • March 2024: the same design translated into Ukrainian, credit still in place. The December 2024 copy matches.
  • July 2025: the yearly archive copy still shows the GCM page.
  • 13 September 2026: the gcm.guru domain, which had lapsed, shows a fresh registration by an undisclosed party. On 14 September 2026 it redirects to a domain-sale listing.

The GCM platform is offline. A web search on 14 September 2026 found no current site, press coverage, reviews or social profiles for it. This case is reconstructed from the mockups and the archived copies, and the domain is left unlinked because it now belongs to an unrelated owner.

What we would add now

These are recommendations for a 2026 rebuild of a beauty-education platform like GCM, based on the archived site. They sit outside the scope of the original project.

Sign-in that fits today's audience

The 2022 and 2024 versions offered VK and OK (Odnoklassniki) buttons next to Facebook. Both Russian networks are blocked in Ukraine. A current build would offer Google and Apple sign-in and e-mail magic links. See Educational website development for schools.

Courses and diplomas that search engines and AI assistants can read

A catalogue with levels, disciplines and a named diploma maps directly onto Course and EducationalOccupationalCredential structured data. With that markup, individual courses and the diploma can appear in Google results and in answers from AI assistants. See AI SEO & GEO agency: ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews.

Parallel language versions

Between 2022 and 2024 the site switched its interface from Russian to Ukrainian. Parallel versions with hreflang would keep both audiences, and an English version would back up the promise of an international diploma.

Two funnels, measured separately

Teacher recruitment and student sign-up are different journeys. Separate analytics events for each, plus a CRM pipeline for teacher applications, are standard practice for a two-sided platform. See Marketing strategy that survives the market.

Domain continuity

Certificates, backlinks and shared course links all pointed at gcm.guru. After the registration lapsed, a third party registered the name, and those references now lead to a sale page. Auto-renewal and a registrar lock are the cheapest protection a platform brand has.

Testimonial

Thank you to the MMIX studio for helping us build the site to our own requirements.

— GCM

Related

For education platforms and online schools: Educational website development for schools. For beauty-industry websites: Beauty salon and spa website development. For visibility in AI assistants: AI SEO & GEO agency: ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews.

Project lead: Marketing MIX. Client: Global Creative Masters (GCM). Year: 2017–2019. The testimonial has been edited for readability from the original.