Lalaaree 🌙️
a website design for my e-commerce art business
Role UI, Illustration, Brand Design
Duration 3 weeks (2021)
Tools Figma, Squarespace
Duration 3 weeks (2021)
Tools Figma, Squarespace
the challenge
In 2019, I started sharing my visual art on various social media platforms as a way to talk about self-care, create meaningful connections, and highlight my Punjabi heritage. I titled it “Lalaaree” which is Punjabi for someone who brings color to things. After growing my following by over 600% in the span of just a year, I was producing pieces that people wanted to purchase and I needed a platform to sell my products.
I designed an e-commerce website that represents the Lalaaree brand.
I designed an e-commerce website that represents the Lalaaree brand.
my process
define 📌️
I created a mindmap of my brainstorming session, thinking about all the words that I associate with the Lalaaree brand to give me a direction in which I wanted to take the website.
goals
- organized — customers can easily find what they are looking for
- personable — customers can know more about me and the message behind my art
- visually pleasing — a work of art on its own
ideate 🖌️
I made a customer flow diagram to understand how a user might find the Lalaaree website. Since Lalaaree’s presence was primarily on social media platforms, I wanted to make sure that the website design was adaptabile to mobile devices.
wireframes
In making wireframes for the initial look of the site, I made sure to highlight “shop” as the main call to action. I found that it would be easier for customers to find what they are looking for if the products were organized by their type. The addition of the “about” section could help customers get to know me and my values better.
illustration explorations
Drawing ideas from my brand brainstorming session, I roughly sketched out illustrations that could represent some of the words on my map. I found that a splash page that could tell the brand’s story and invite the customer to know more, would truly set the tone for the entire website.
I discovered that secondary illustrations and icons could provide coherency throughout the website. Since my goal was to make the website personable and visually pleasing, I wanted to show a little bit of Lalaaree in every corner of the site.
design 🧩
I decided to use Squarespace to build my website as it offered intuitive commerce tools. I was able to enhance an existing template.
Using custom CSS, I linked illustrations and icons to pages, making it easy to navigate and find products. The use of a variety of colors and visuals on every page added a personal touch and successfully embodied the brand.
Want to see more? Click to check out the full website
︎
reflect 💭️
takeaways
- Just within a few months of launching my website, I was able to make over 5k in revenue. Customers reached out to me to tell me that my website was easy to use, beautiful, and left them feeling inspired. It made me happy that I could combine my design and business skills on this project.
- Meeting user needs while also designing something that represents you as a business owner requires an introspection of both. As designers, we are always told to design for others, not just for yourself, so it was interesting for me to wear multiple hats for this project.
future iterations
designing “mobile first” — although this website design is fully responsive, I felt that some elements could have translated better on smaller screens. I plan to make a few more iterations for the mobile version to minimize lengthy scrolls.