What is your favourite thing about designing for ecommerce?
There’s a lot that’s exiting about designing for ecommerce. One thing that’s fascinating is understand what motivates people - and how to best communicate often really complex ideas in a matter of seconds. Designing for ecommerce is half intuition and way-finding, i.e. getting out of consumer’s way and allowing them the information they need, and half creating smart and memorable moments that express the brand and connect with their customers. When the two come together it’s really amazing the impact it can have. Having a really well designed ecommence site can be a game changing thing for brands. It’s awesome when we design something that we can look at and say, “wow, yeah that’s cool” and it’s 100% cooler to say, “wow, yeah that’s cool and look at how well it’s working.”
What ecommerce trend do you hate?
I guess a step above trends is a general theme relating to what I mentioned in the last question. There’s a ton of award sites out there that I think can be great for design culture but can also be a real bummer. There’s a lot of designers that want to create the next insane WebGL / 3JS experience - and those things are great when supporting the right ideas. Within ecommerce specifically, there’s a fine balance between making something that’s memorable and ‘innovative’ and making something totally fucking unusable. These sites need to be great experiences that sell things. Your audience should be the brand’s audience - not other designers. Having this frame of mind and trust in you and your teams will produce the award winning work you want.
Where do you go for design inspiration?
Geez, good question. Not to sound like a snob or anything but NYC is a pretty amazing and constant source of inspiration. Our New York office is in Chinatown and simply popping in some headphones and walking around should move you. The bodegas, neons, museums and subways have amazing graphics. From a digital standpoint I like digging through Instagram and checking into some of the award sites here and there.
What's your favourite web font?
Hard to say one in particular. I really dig the Grilli & Commercial Type foundries.
Who's your current ecomm crush?
The newly launched DS & Durga is really nice. So are the sunglasses brands Ace & Tate and Mr Leight. Both of those are well done.
What's your jam while working?
We listen to a lot of disco, funk and hip hop at the studio.
What's your favourite Shopify app and why?
Probably the custom app we built for Buffy.co :) There’s a lot of logic that goes into being able to run a free 30 day trial and it’s helped get a lot of their really amazing product out there.
How did you start designing Shopify sites?
I started designing Shopify sites at other agencies prior to starting Zero. When I went freelance I had a new-found appreciation and realization of how much a solid Shopify solution can help support. You can get to market faster and customize to fit the needs of the project quite well. I also love the idea that scrappy folks who have a product idea, and the passion to follow it, can put something together and successfully sell product. That’s cool.
What's the best design advice someone has given you?
I think some of the best advice has been to try to use “We” more then “I” and “You have a lot to learn.”
What Shopify project are you most proud of?
I think I’m most proud of the site we made for Buffy. Our businesses met similar points and it’s been really cool to grow alongside them. They have a really amazing project and have built a very cool brand that’s resonating with a lot of people. It’s nice to be able to be a part of that. We have a number of really great Shopify sites launching very soon that we’re really proud of as well. Can’t wait to release those.
