Case study · Custom e-commerce
Five pieces. One custom store.
sk:p is a fashion label that stopped designing seasons in 2022: a permanent wardrobe of five garments, remade when it sells out. I designed the identity, set in Anton and electric blue, and built a custom e-commerce, ready to run on Shopify or WordPress.
CAPSULE 01 : PERMANENT COLLECTION
Five pieces.
Nothing else.
We stopped designing seasons in 2022. What is left is a permanent wardrobe of five garments, cut in Italy or Portugal, and everything is repairable.
Biella · Como · Porto DELIVERY
Free over €150 REPAIRS
For life, at cost
01 · The brief
The scenario: a label that killed seasons in 2022 and kept exactly five garments, an overcoat, a blazer, a merino crew, and two shirts, remade when they sell out and retired only when they stop earning their place. The hard part is not manufacturing, it is selling restraint online, where every store shouts "new arrivals" and "shop the edit".
The brief I gave myself: an identity loud enough to make less feel deliberate, not timid, and a store that treats five products like a manifesto, with a checkout that gets out of the way. One custom e-commerce, on a platform the client actually owns.
Anton, blue, and a colon
The strategy in one line: sk:p is not quiet luxury, it is loud restraint. The identity had to shout a small number, so I gave it a condensed voice and a single, unmissable blue.
Strategy, and the road not taken
First direction explored: quiet luxury, thin serif, beige and stone, a store that whispers. Tasteful, but it reads as timid, and "five pieces" whispered sounds like a shop that ran out of stock. I rejected it.
The chosen direction: an editorial newsstand energy. Anton, a heavy condensed face, set in all caps, for headlines that behave like a poster. Inter Tight for the body, and IBM Plex Mono for the labels and the running ticker, so specs read like a spec sheet. One electric blue, nothing pastel, used as the second half of every headline. The mark is the wordmark itself: sk:p, where the colon is the pause that says "stop here".
The identity system
The wordmark: set in Inter Tight, tight and lowercase, with the colon carrying the electric blue. The pause is the point.
Type in action: Anton shouts, the blue lands the second line, the mono keeps the receipts. No ornament, ever.
Three values, no palette bloat: ink, one electric blue, and paper white. The blue never becomes a background, only an accent.
The running ticker in IBM Plex Mono runs the brand's promises like a stock feed, the same promises the store has to keep.
The store, screen by screen
A custom e-commerce, not a theme with the logo swapped. Every screen is born twice: first as a wireframe, while changing it is cheap, then as design in the brand mood. Here they are side by side.
Screen 01 · The collection
Wireframe · before
Design · after
ALL FIVE PIECES
OUTERWEAR
Volta Overcoat
€690
KNITWEAR
Sesto Merino Crew
€240
SHIRTING
Atelier Poplin
€185
The decision: the grid brags about being short. Category label in mono, name in Inter Tight, price in blue, a QUICK ADD on hover. Five products with real names, Volta, Meridian, Sesto, Atelier, Cotone, so the store feels curated, not thin.
Screen 02 · The method
Wireframe · before
Design · after
We would rather make one coat for ten years than ten coats for one.
01 : FEWER THINGS
Five styles, permanently available.
02 : NAMED MILLS
Biella, Como, Okayama.
03 : REPAIRED
Sent back, fixed at cost.
The decision: the method is a page, not a footer link. The founding line runs in Anton on ink, and the three principles, fewer things, named mills, repaired not replaced, are numbered in mono, exactly how the live site argues its case.
Screen 03 · Bag and checkout
Wireframe · before
Design · after
YOUR BAG (1)
Card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Klarna. 30-day returns, prepaid.
The decision: the bag shows the whole truth on one screen, item, carbon-neutral shipping, total, no surprise at step three. The blue CHECKOUT button is the only filled blue on the screen, so it is impossible to miss.
Custom e-commerce, on a platform you own
The design is bespoke, exactly what you see above. The engine underneath is one you already trust and can staff. I build the same custom experience on either, and hand you the keys.
Two engines, one build
Custom theme or headless (Hydrogen) storefront on Shopify. You get their checkout, payments, inventory and apps, with a front end that looks nothing like a template. Best when you want the smoothest checkout and the least maintenance.
Custom WooCommerce build on WordPress. Full ownership of the code and data, editorial and journal under the same roof, no per-sale platform fee. Best when content and SEO sit at the center of the business.
Either way you get the same things: a bespoke design system, products and content you can edit without me, a migration path from whatever you are on now, and clean structured data baked in. No lock-in, no mystery. If you outgrow one, the design travels to the other.
✦ AI Ready, applied
Found by shoppers who ask an assistant to buy.
What does an AI assistant answer to "a well made wool overcoat that lasts, made in Europe"? It depends on what it can read. For sk:p: Product structured data with material, mill and price; Offer schema with availability and returns; answer-first copy (what it is made of, where, how to care for it); an FAQ written the way buyers actually ask ("does it come with repairs?", "what is the return window?"). On Shopify or WooCommerce, the same checklist ships with every Coodie build, so the store is legible to search engines and shopping assistants alike.
06 · A concept, built for real
A demonstration brand. A real, working store.
sk:p is a concept I designed and built end to end, and I say so. I prefer a declared demonstration to a portfolio inflated with clients that never existed. But the build is real: you can open it, add the Volta Overcoat to the bag, and reach checkout. Everything you just read, the strategy, the rejected direction, the wireframes before design, the custom store on a platform you own, the AI Ready product data, is exactly the path of a real engagement. With a real client only one thing changes: the name over the door.
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