Archives: Websites

eCommerce Websites

Gamine

By Catalin Zorzini  /  March 5, 2018

Gamine is an exploration of femininity and worn character. As we look to accommodate the needs of different trades– and as Yankee gardeners and geologists ourselves– we aim to tread lightly by creating products that support sustainable manufacturing and the lost art of mending. We choose to work with textiles that are selected with great consideration for their ruggedness and ability to highlight the work and story of the worker.

Ethletic

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 11, 2026

Ethletic sells fair trade, vegan sneakers built from bio-cotton and natural rubber, positioned around ethical manufacturing under the line "Wear Fair. Wear Change." The catalogue is small and named rather than categorized by type: Jesse, Donovan, Active, Carl and White Cap, each offered in low or high cut. The site is built on Shopify and prices its shoes between roughly 80 and 130 euros.

Website Design

Inter carries the whole page. Headings, body copy and labels all run in the Inter typeface, set through CSS variables that point every text role back to the same family rather than pairing a display face with a workhorse one. The effect is a single, even typographic voice across the site.

A neutral ground for status color. The base palette stays close to black and white, reserved almost entirely for the interface chrome; the defined accent colors are functional rather than decorative, marking stock levels in green, amber and grey and errors in dark red.

Product photography on a plain field. Shoes are shot straight-on against a flat background, with color options such as Jet Black, Chalk White and Sand Grey shown as swatches rather than as separate lifestyle images.

Shopping Experience

A short list of named styles. The shop groups everything under five shoe names rather than a large SKU count, so the category page reads more like a lineup than a browse-heavy grid, with an outlet section set apart for reduced stock.

Care and supply chain content close to the product. About Us, Our Mission and Supply Chain pages sit in the main navigation next to the shoe collections, putting production information on the same level as the shop itself rather than pushed into a footer link.

Tiered shipping by region. Delivery is priced by destination, roughly 4.90 euros within Germany, 10.70 euros across the EU and 17.40 euros to Switzerland, with a 30 day return window where the customer covers return postage.

Brand Storytelling

Certifications stated plainly. The site names its standards directly: Fairtrade and GOTS-certified bio-cotton, FSC-certified natural rubber, and manufacturing based in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India under Fairtrade auditing.

A named labor partnership. Ethletic points to a worker welfare society it co-founded with its production partner, Talon Sports, giving the ethical claims a specific organization to point to rather than a general statement.

A long-running position, dated on the page. The tagline "Thinking Different Since 1998" anchors the brand's ethical stance to a specific founding year rather than treating it as a recent addition.

Notable Features

Trustpilot reviews in the footer. Customer ratings are surfaced through Trustpilot rather than a built-in review widget, sitting alongside the payment method icons.

Broad checkout payment support. PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and major card networks are all offered at checkout, alongside detailed legal and privacy pages.

An FAQ built around sustainability questions. Rather than only covering shipping and sizing, the support content answers questions about production transparency and material sourcing directly.

Ethletic Shop Category page example

Ethletic Product page example

Ethletic Checkout page example

Ethletic footer example

Brother Vellies

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 11, 2026

Brother Vellies is a luxury accessories label founded in 2013 by Aurora James to keep traditional African design practices alive while creating and sustaining artisanal jobs. The store sells veldskoen desert shoes, huaraches, hand-drawn Doodle mules, socks, a mens edit and a homewares section called the Bodega, at prices from $35 for a sock to $795 for a mule. An annual sample sale of archive styles sits at the front of the navigation. Built on Shopify using the Madrid theme.

Website Design

Sage green against white. The colour tokens work a muted olive, #767e74, and a deeper forest, #3B433D, over white with near-black text. Green arrives as panel fills and button grounds, not as a small accent.

Fraunces over Figtree. Headings and both menus are set in Fraunces, a soft serif, with heavy negative letter spacing that pulls words tight. Body copy uses Figtree at a light weight, with button labels in upper case.

A homepage built from the shop. The page opens straight into two four-up product rows, Huaraches and Vellies, each closing with its own Shop link, and only then gives one block of brand copy.

Shopping Experience

Faceted collection pages. Every collection declares its item count and exposes filters for availability, size, price, type and colour plus a nine-option sort. Vellies holds 19 items, Socks 15, the Bodega 23 and the sample sale 102.

A proprietary size run. Shoes are sold as Vellie 1 through Vellie 12, with the conversion given in plain text: women count up four numbers for their US size, men count up two. Unavailable sizes stay on screen, labelled rather than hidden.

Preorder treated as a normal state. Homepage cards carry a Preorder badge beside the price, so styles not in the warehouse stay purchasable instead of dropping out of the grid.

Accordions under the buy button. Details, Shipping and Returns collapse below the price. US orders ship free over $500, calculated UPS rates apply below that, and processing runs two to three days.

Brand Storytelling

A manifesto set inside the grid. Between the product rows the homepage states: “We are not just creating products – we are making notes on culture, creating symbols, collaborating for personal freedoms and capturing moments.” It ends: “Sometimes just existing as you are is a revolutionary act.”

Material and origin in the product copy. Descriptions name the hide and the country, such as brown kudu suede made in South Africa, outsole-stitched with a rubber sole. A standing note adds that shoes use bi-product or environmentally conscious materials, so no two pairs match.

Notable Features

Product names that argue a point. The Doodle mules run Tree of Life, Eve, Yin Yang and Bans Off Our Bodies, all at $795, so the collection reads as a set of statements at one price.

The Bodega as a second shop. Introduced as “a small selection of thoughtfully made products for your home and life”, it holds a handwoven shoe box at $105, brass salad servers at $385 and a meditation mug at $35.

A sample sale built as a real collection. The sale page adds a shop-by-size row across the top and prints the original price beside the reduced one: a bird bag cut from $1,500 to $749.

Baserange

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 11, 2026

Baserange sells minimalist clothing basics for women and men, built around natural and recycled materials, under the stated line “Basics in Natural and Recycled Materials.” The catalogue spans tops, dresses, underwear, jumpsuits, outerwear, knitwear, denim and swimwear, organized into Core Collection, Best Sellers, a seasonal Autumn Winter range, a VEJA x Baserange collaboration and a Repair line. Built on Shopify. Note: the ACF-recorded baserange.net address now redirects to baserange.com, the same brand on its current domain.

Website Design

Near-monochrome with one accent. The interface runs on black, white and near-black (#0b0b0b) with light neutral grounds (#f4f3f1, #e6e6e6), and a single red (#d02e2e) appears for sale pricing. There is no secondary brand color competing with the product photography.

Epilogue and Nunito paired. Headings and body copy pair Epilogue with Nunito, both plain grotesque-style sans-serifs, keeping typography understated against the clothing images.

Material names as design copy. Product titles fold the fabric directly into the name, for example “Anorak hood – Recycled cashmere,” so material information reads as part of the product identity rather than a separate spec line.

Shopping Experience

A column toggle. The all-products listing lets shoppers switch between a 3-column and 4-column grid view, a control not common on the other sites in this set.

Filters by size, color, type and material. Alongside a Featured / Most popular / Price sort, the filter panel breaks the catalogue down by Product type and Material as well as the usual size and color, useful given how material-led the range is.

Prices and swatches on the card. Each card shows price (with strikethrough sale pricing where relevant, for example “22,00 EUR” reduced to “14,00 EUR”) and clickable color swatches beneath it, so comparison happens before a click-through.

A large catalogue. The listing reports 546 products, considerably larger than a typical basics range, reflecting the number of color and material variants per style.

Brand Storytelling

Sustainability stated as process, not slogan. A dedicated Production and Sustainability section, paired with Care guidance, frames the brand’s environmental claims around manufacturing choices, materials like organic cotton, bamboo lyocell, ecovero viscose and hemp, and repair rather than replacement.

Faces of production. A “Portrait series” documents the people involved in making the clothes, shifting the storytelling from the finished garment to its production chain.

Repair over disposal. A standalone Repair collection, built from deadstock and upcycled material, is presented as a distinct product line rather than a customer-service afterthought.

Notable Features

A named designer collaboration. The VEJA x Baserange line is merchandised as its own collection, crossing over with the footwear brand rather than staying purely in-house.

Journal content in primary navigation. Editorial or journal-style content sits alongside shop categories in the main menu rather than being buried in a footer link.

Free shipping threshold. Orders above roughly 150 EUR ship free, with the full range priced from about 65 EUR to 230 EUR depending on category and material.

Baserange Shop Category page example

Baserange Product page example

Baserange Checkout page example

Baserange footer example