Website design case study

Who is the brand selling to?

Solea Store caters to young, driven individuals who live by hustle culture and express their ambition through fashion. Their audience is primarily Gen Z and young Millennials who resonate with messages like “Get rich or die trying”, as well as streetwear featuring iconic rappers like Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, and Tupac.

By combining motivational messaging with hip-hop influences, Solea Store creates apparel that speaks to a generation that sees success as a lifestyle.

What do competitors do?

Understanding the competition helps identify gaps and opportunities in the market. We analyzed similar streetwear and print-on-demand brands to see how they approach design, branding, and user experience.

• Focus on Aesthetic & Hype Culture: Competitors within the same niche heavily lean into trendy, hype-driven designs with bold typography and high-contrast visuals to attract young buyers.
• Limited Customization Options: While some brands allow minor personalization (like name prints), few offer a seamless way to request custom prints on demand.

Writing the website copy

The website copy plays a crucial role in defining the brand’s voice and guiding customers through the shopping experience. It needs to be bold, motivational, and aligned with Solea Store’s target audience—young, ambitious individuals who resonate with hustle culture and hip-hop influences.

Tone & Style: The language should be energetic, direct, and inspiring, mirroring the brand’s motivational themes. Think short, punchy headlines like "Step Back Into Style”.

Planning out a wireframe

Before diving into the visuals, I crafted the user flow and mapped out the website pages to ensure a seamless shopping experience. The wireframe was planned accordingly, focusing on clarity, conversion, and strong brand identity.

Preparing website assets

After finalizing the wireframe and refining it through multiple iterations based on user testing with individuals who fit the brand’s target audience, it was time to prepare the website assets. However, the brand owner couldn’t provide a photoshoot for the products, so we crafted high-quality mockups that still aligned with the intended photoshoot direction, ensuring a cohesive and authentic brand aesthetic.

Creating High-Fidelity UI

With the wireframes finalized and tested & assets prepared, it was time to bring the vision to life with high-fidelity UI design. The goal was to create bold aesthetics that convey the brand’s authenticity while ensuring a seamless user experience. To reinforce the brand’s streetwear identity, I incorporated paint elements throughout the design, reflecting the raw, expressive culture of the target audience.

Choosing the right tech-stack

To develop the website with the functionalities shown in the design and ensure the brand owner could easily manage it, I needed a tech stack that was both flexible in design and user-friendly on the backend. Shopify was the ideal choice, offering a solid eCommerce foundation with customization capabilities. I built the website using:

• Shopify Liquid – For dynamic content and templating, ensuring seamless product and order management.
• HTML, CSS – To structure and style the site, creating a visually striking yet functional layout.
• Vanilla JavaScript – For interactive elements like hover effects, dynamic filtering, and custom pop-ups.
• Shopify Hosting – Providing a secure, scalable solution without the hassle of external hosting management.