NDA Recreation
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Industry
Supplier & Commerce
Disciplines
Branding & Shopify® (partial prototype build)
Limited Time / Password Access
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Introduction
Originally a trial one-week prerequisite part of a job application in late 2021/ early 2022, an agency requested a full rebranding, re-titling/naming, and website refresh as a home page visual deliverable for a well-known distributor for the hair & salon industry professionals.
Branding Identity
including Titling & Naming ideations, (2022)Website Concept Design
High-fidelity prototyping with Atomic Principle Design System in Figma®. (2022).As additional incentives within this 2025 Case Study revisit :
Brief re-auditing on the current 2025 website (across two sighted iterations early and late July 2025)
Revised visualization plus partial build demonstration in Shopify®.*
* Regretfully, due to the Shopify's Trial Plan expiry that has elapsed, the store's URL is currently inaccessible. Please contact me for a confidential Figma® Prototype showcase.
Problem Statement
A well known & respected supplier to the hair & salon industry requested website redesign, re-brand/re-title proposition, and refined e-commerce experience to reflect the 50*-long year proud history.
*Previously the original brief was erroneously advised as twenty-five years of history, as opposed to fifty / "50" (evidence on this initial brief available upon confidential request). Hence here throughout this 2025 Case Study, fiftty (50) is used for factual consistency.
AI / Automation / Generative content usage
The only deliverables I had to resort to using generative tools in order to overcome parametric limitations of Shopify® were the following:
Custom Blog Posts Collection
For context, many Shopify® default themes offer unique but fixated set of parameters, that are not always congruent how they can be shown on various types of pages as well as structural artifacts for instance - mega menus. Here, a custom blog posts collection was created through Shopify's Sidekick® with an array of options from adjustable carousels and layout options.Blog articles
Since this is a very large e-commerce site comprising hundreds of products and many dozens of thought-leaderships content pieces, the built-in generative writing(s) were required for adequate content population.Custom Breadcrumbs
At the time of this writing, implementing a breadcrumb involved some coding proficiency which impairs the timeliness delivery. Hence, in this instance, and given Shopify's many limitations in its native offering, a custom Block was generated with various options to assist and may potentially be of use for other projects.
Full Video Case Study
A twenty-five minute fully narrated, edited and cut (FCPX) Case study video presentation is provided below. Here I outlined the history of the original briefing (late 2021/2022) before then the 2025 personal revisit (redux) and upskilling initiative.
Demographics
(B2B) Males and female ~ existing industry professionals in the hair & salon industries.
(B2B) Business owners and/or contractors in the industry.
(End clientele / front facing audience) Male and female, median income, already fashion and grooming-conscious segment.
20-45 years of age.
Mr. Michelo Rossi
Archetype ~ “The Jet Setter”
32 Years old
Perth, Western Australia
Chief Clients Liason
Introvert
Extrovert
Analytical
Creative
Busy
Time Rich
Messy
Organized
Independent
Team Player
Safe
Risky
Background
Born in WA but raised by his ethnic roots of Southern Europe, Michelo spent much of his childhood firstly in the eastern states before settling in Perth Western Australia where he gained his bachelor plus honors in Management. Now a well-travelled clients liaison chief for a multinational life insurance firm; he considers himself well-travelled, jet-setting from one city to another.
He frequented numerous barbers locally and internationally, mingling with the famous and the expensive ~ albeit his experiences returned with mixed successes and disappointments, possibly given by his very specific and esoteric standards.
Given his executive & seniority level as clients liaison at a multi-national firm, he demands grooming, wellbeing and appearances for an impeccable and lasting impressions amidst all client interactions; both prospective and/or existing.
Industry & Interests
Needs & Goals
Motivations
Pain Points & Frustrations
Auditing & Brand Re-Titling
The brief auditing revealed accessibility and design decisions that could have been optimized, on top of addressing the general accessibility on the colour scheming.
Naming and titling brainstorming soon began after the audit.
Having examined options then shortlisted to just a few ~ Comb.Direct was chosen for both simplicity and utility as the intended domain URL. Interestingly, the domain name was in actuality, available at the time of project's timeline (late 2021/early 2022).
Research, Moodboarding & Stylescaping
General brainstorming on both existing fiction and non fictional ideas were sought, eventually forming a branding Stylescaping encompassing colour scheming and general design decisions; reflecting more on the conservative side of the long, fifty 50-years of servitude for the hair & salon industry.
Naming Decisions Design and brandmark based on Letterforms C and D
The Concept name(s) "Comb" and "Direct" were considered as they immediately hint the company's long history for delivering and supplying for the hair and salon industry. As well, combining them together conveniently forms the desired URL/domain name.
Hence, in light of these connotations symbolic visualizations on tools the trade (the comb, and the razor) were explored in their most minimal presentation.
Further, integrating the letterforms C and D also stems as an idea to retrospect the company's initials (C)omb (D)irect.
SWIPE
The Shopify® prototype - customisation & indicative content migration.
As major incentive in this 2025 Case Study is a fully (on-brand) build on the pre-set Shopify® theme Atelier. Spanning throughout two and half months of upskilling - development here included battle testing limitations as well as the mandatory support enquiries.
For timely deliverability (within MVP / minimum-viable-product in mind) and also as added challenge ~ only very few, select external plug-ins on top fo those that came pre-installed natively with the stock theme Atelier were considered.
As stated earlier, the limitations within each stock themes themselves cannot be understated. Hence, the resort on Custom AI generated block to display curated blog articles, and basic breadcrumbs all with adjustable layout parameters.
Further incentives includes a hero video banner. Using various free to use public footages, these were cut/edited with Apple® Final Cut Pro X to promote vibrancy and emotive story-telling.
SWIPE
Post Project Outcome / Criterias
I humbly disclose that at the time of industry conduct ~ any or all impact statements were strictly forbidden for me to query and/or simply unobtainable. The following criterias below are what I would raise soon after a Project surpasses their service period; as hypothetical "Retrospective" .
About this Case Study
Unless otherwise explicitly specified - all artworks, including naming, titling, sample content-writing including this Case study, and the entire front-end development ~ have NOT been entirely resorted through Artificial Intelligence, or generative tools.
All hours expended on each NDA re-creation(s) were conducted out of limited, personal and voluntary capacity on top of / during full time tenure.