Urban Knit sell their products through the high street with the likes of John Lewis, Topshop, River Island and Waitrose. Wildly successful, Urban Knit needed a far stronger web presence than the one they already had in place, to sell more and communicate with users in a more compelling fashion. We immediately identified that the products had a high quality, but hand made feel to them, and that the designers at Urban Knit all had a very close relationship with their products and manufacturing process.
We wanted to trasnfer that feeling to the online experience of shopping with Urban Knit. This would be an e-commerce website with a definite human face, customers would get a real connection with the thought and care taken in producing Urban Knits products.
Urban Knit already had a very simple logo in place, it's easy to use across a variety of different media. We noticed that the very best embodiment of it was on the small 'UK' tags that appeared on their products. By taking the simple logo, and creating a version of it for online use that felt like those very same embroidered tags, we wanted to give the same feeling of Urban Knit adding their signature to their work as well as constantly reinforcing the brand.
Before any big web design refresh and launch, we'll start to think about ways to promote the changes we're making and re-engage with a clients customers. Turning old customers into new ones, as well as reaching out to anyone who might have signed up to receive promotional offers and news. We created a lovely, responsive 'coming soon' page, as well as social assets to countdown to the launch.
When we approached Clear we already had a website in place - but its performance was fairly lacklustre. We do incredibly well with our stockists on the high street and wanted to replicate that same level of traction online - where we can be selling 24/7. The new website Clear created for us has been an instant hit, per day sales have gone through the roof and we've now got more scope to grow the website and review our entire online strategy. The website has helped us open up to entirely new customers and markets and set a benchmark for how we communicate online."
Rather than a homepage filled with the noise of a varierty of messages that can overwhlem a user, we created a web design that lets Urban Knit carry a lot of messages but in a very clean and structured way. The website feels like each product could be an artisanal one off, the style of imagery is carefully chosen and copy is kept to a minumum. The homepage is all about the very best of products and the intricate detail in them.
Alternative homepage header 1
Alternative homepage header 2
A stark before and after. Urban Knit already had a website in place, but it felt amatuerish and didn't have anything in its tone or presentation that would resonate with their core customers. With bolder use of imagery and a cleaner, more refined layout - the website is designed to champion the product.
Drag the centre circle in the image to see a before and after comparison.
The top level shop page is once again designed to showcase products in the boldest way. The grid of images and titles can be easily reconfigured to allow for any sort of set up. It means Urban Knit are able to champion any range or product over another at any time.
The category pages are designed to show product images in the biggest way possible. The light and airy feel of them means the content gives way to the product imagery. At all times we want to sell the lifestyle choice of buying an Urban Knit product over its competitors.
It's all about the product. The product page is designed to elevate the product images, to put it front and centre in the mind of the customer. The page feels like a portfolio page, something more high end and bespoke than the price of the products actually suggests. The designer also speaks directly about the We make sure we make the buying choice a no brainer for the customer, by using large and detailed photography, we sell the quality of the product to the customer visually.
Depending on the product configuration in the Content Management System, the front end of the website will display the buying options accordingly. It takes away the hassle from Urban Knit when it comes to having to select multiple page options when setting up a product. Instead they select a single new product page and add product content and purchase options to the same section, making it much faster and easier to administer their store. Our intelligent code does the rest.
Urban Knit sell their products through a variety of hight street retailers. We designed and built a powerful stockist locator, via a postcode or location search we're able to show the customer exactly where they buy Urban Knit products, as well as geting directions to the store. The same page also promotes other retailers to get int ouch to talk about becoming stockists, by communicating the benefits and sales / assets available.
Urban Knit love engaging with their customers. One of the biggest reasons they get in touch is to talk about the best way of caring for their knitwear, how to clean and maintain them as well as what all the wash symbols on the products actually mean! We redrew all of the core wash label icons, and created a beautiful page educating customers what those symbols mean. Urban Knit also had the option to add specific care symbols to each individual product - so customers would understand specific care instructions during the buying process.
One of the main reasons customers of Urban Knit get in touch is to learn more about how to wash and clean their products. It had become something of a pain point as those phone calls and emails were racking up. Even with wash and care instructions sewn into each product customers can sometimes still become confused as to what the various symbols mean. We proposed a beautifully illustrated page with a range of custom icons explaining exactly what those symbols mean in a friendly and accessible manor.
The designers at Urban Knit are the heart and soul of the business. We met with them often and it was clear to see they invested a huge amount of time, effort and care into every product they design and make. They're truly passionate about what they do, and we understood that we needed to translate that passion to their website. To show users that they're weren't simply buying a bog standard product, that they were actually buying a piece of someones work. As well as smaller descriptions that the designer would write for each product, the designers have their own pages to feature their products, to set out their own personal style and show how it fits into Urban Knit as a whole. Via the Journal they're able to share things they find across the web or at shows in a Pinterest like fashion.
The online buying process should be as frictionless as possible. A user shouldn't have to feel like they're jumping through hoops, or having to give away vast amounts of personal information simply to buy something. We designed a payment process that was clearly labelled every step of the way, and keep all relevant information for an order on a single page. The payment and delivery information is also handled in the smae way, rather than going through lots of stages across a number of screens, we keep everything compact and quick on a single, well designed page.
The Urban Knit website has deep integrations with social media and tools to engage with users directly through designer profiles that can be followed. With all that in mind we created an awesome mobile experience, that retains all of the original intentions of the original design, where product is king, as well as wanting to create a unique feel around the buying process.
All works and writing copyright Parb Johal unless otherwise stated. @parbjohal
