Archives: Websites

eCommerce Websites

mini mioche

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 11, 2026

Mini Mioche sells organic cotton basics for the whole family, from newborn rompers through kids, teens and adult sizes, manufactured in Canada since 2008. The catalogue is built around family-wide sizing rather than a single age group, and the brand pairs that structure with an explicit non-toxic manufacturing standard. The store runs on Shopify.

Website Design

A charcoal text base with custom display type. Body copy sits in a dark charcoal, close to #303030, against a plain white ground. Two uploaded typefaces, Kreon and Urbanist, are declared through @font-face rather than pulled from a stock font service, distinct from the plain system sans used elsewhere on the page.

Emoji as navigation markers. The main menu pairs several category links with a small emoji icon rather than an illustrated glyph, a lighter way of signposting sections without commissioning custom iconography.

Swatch-first product grids. Collection pages show color swatches directly on the product card, so shoppers can see the available colorways for a style before opening the product page.

Shopping Experience

Sizing is the top-level structure. The main navigation splits first by age and body rather than by garment type: Baby (0-24 months), Kids (1-8 years), Teens (9-16 years) and Adult sit alongside New Arrivals and Best Sellers, with cross-cutting thematic collections named Cloud, Dreamy, Mod, Cozy and Plush layered on top.

Visible discounting. Sale items show a struck-through original price next to the reduced price on the grid itself, and a dedicated Sale section aggregates the current markdowns rather than folding them into a filter.

A wide price band. Listed prices run from about $24 to $138 CAD, consistent with a range that spans baby basics up to adult outerwear-weight pieces in the same catalogue.

Brand Storytelling

A tagline that does double duty. “life is messy. our clothes are clean.” sets up both the practical pitch, clothes built for a toddlers day, and the manufacturing one, clean production.

An explicit no-no list. Rather than a general sustainability statement, the brand names what it excludes: microplastics, toxic dyes, pesticides and other harmful chemicals, backed by a “non-toxic + organic” badge shown on product pages.

Made in Canada, dated. The since-2008 manufacturing claim is stated plainly rather than folded into softer heritage language, giving it a checkable anchor.

Notable Features

A named newsletter list. The footer signup is branded “join the famm” rather than a generic “subscribe,” extending the brands casual tone into a functional form.

A store locator alongside ecommerce. Footer links include a physical store locator and customer service information next to the standard social and legal links, indicating the brand sells through retail as well as its own site.

One catalogue, four life stages. Carrying baby, kids, teens and adult sizing under one roof, with shared collection names like Cloud and Cozy spanning several of those groups, is the sites clearest structural choice.

mini mioche Shop Category page example

mini mioche Product page example

mini mioche Checkout page example

mini mioche footer example

Tea and Kate

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 11, 2026

Tea + Kate is a British independent design store that also sells its own consultancy, describing itself as “an independent design platform offering considered product collections alongside creative and commercial consultancy”. The shop covers homeware, lighting, furniture, kitchen and tableware, clothing, beauty, stationery and books, stocking HAY, Muuto, Frama, Hasami, HMM, Hightide, Le Bon Shoppe, Phaidon and gestalten among others. It trades in pounds with a full multi-currency selector. Built on Shopify.

Website Design

Near-black on warm cream. Text sits at #212121 over off-whites of #f5f2ec and #fcfbf9, with a muted gold, #ab8c52, as the accent. Individual sections swap grounds for sage green, taupe, near-black or a hot orange, so the page reads as a sequence of tinted panels rather than one continuous field.

One typeface, sized hard. Geist runs across headings, body copy and navigation. The scale does the hierarchy work a second face would usually carry, running from 12px eyebrow labels and 13px navigation up to a 60px display size on desktop.

Counts in the menu. The mega menu prints an item count beside every category and subcategory, so Living reads 105, Stationery 50, Books and Magazine 39 and Lighting 3 before anything is opened.

Shopping Experience

Merchandised as drops. Top-level navigation is organised by release rather than department, listing the current sale alongside SS 26 Drop 01 and AW 26 Drop 02, with the announcement bar repeating the same message.

Sale prices live in the product titles. Reduced items keep the previous figure inside the product name, so a grid card shows the item, then the word WAS and the old price, with the current price printed beneath it.

Add to cart from the grid. Cards carry an Add to cart button, or Quick add where a variant choice is needed, so most of the catalogue can be bought without opening a product page.

A cart drawer that upsells and gifts. The drawer offers a Pair with recommendation, an “Is this a gift?” toggle and an order note field before checkout, and states that shipping, taxes and discount codes are calculated at checkout.

Brand Storytelling

Two businesses, one site. Retail and consultancy sit side by side, with the consultancy scope listed as brand development and positioning, retail and e-commerce, buying, sourcing and curation, visual merchandising and styling, content, social media and campaigns, and events, partnerships and collaborations.

Experience stated plainly. The consultancy block grounds itself in “thirteen years of independent retail and experience working with international design brands” rather than in a founder narrative, and the newsletter is pitched as product drops, studio news and selected projects.

Notable Features

A separate furniture FAQ. Furniture gets its own help page alongside the general FAQ, reflecting a catalogue that includes ex-display and collection-only pieces.

Popular Brands as navigation. Brands appear as a top-level menu entry, treated the same as product categories.

Welcome code and gift cards. A WELCOME10 code for 10% off a first order is promoted inside the cart drawer, and a gift card link sits in the utility bar beside Contact and Instagram.

bluboho

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 11, 2026

bluboho sells handcrafted fine jewelry curated from independent studio makers, run from Canada with boutiques in Ottawa, Oakville, Calgary and two Toronto locations, shipping internationally with free shipping within Canada. Pricing spans from under 100 dollars for stacking pieces to nearly 4,000 dollars for statement necklaces, and the storefront is built on Shopify’s headless Hydrogen framework.

Website Design

Cream, near-black and jewelry-metal accents. The stylesheet defines a warm cream and beige ground against near-black text, with rose gold, yellow gold, white gold and sterling silver named as separate color tokens, tying the interface palette directly to the metals sold.

Montserrat for interface, Sorts Mill Goudy for editorial. Two typefaces are loaded: Montserrat, a geometric sans, for navigation and product data, and Sorts Mill Goudy, a humanist serif, reserved for longer storytelling text.

A zodiac-themed merchandising module. The homepage currently runs a seasonal astrology tie-in, a Virgo gift guide timed to the August 23 to September 22 window, framed with a pull-a-card interactive prompt.

Shopping Experience

Price-forward product tiles. Homepage tiles show name and price directly in Canadian dollars, for example a Diamond Evil Eye Charm at 498 and a Cosmic Love Necklace at 3,998, skipping the click-through-for-price pattern some peer sites use.

Customer voice folded into merchandising. Individual review lines appear inline with product tiles rather than in a separate reviews tab, such as a first-person note on the Lean On Me ring describing it as a marker of a new beginning after a separation.

A headless Shopify build. Stylesheets and scripts load from a Shopify Oxygen deployment path, indicating a custom storefront built on Shopify’s Hydrogen framework rather than a stock theme.

Brand Storytelling

An origin story kept short. The brand states its founding directly: two friends, Cheryl and Maggie, who started the company by a lake, are named on-page rather than left anonymous.

A stated cause commitment. The site states membership in 1% for the Planet, a global network of 4,000 businesses in 90 countries that pledge a minimum of 1% of sales to environmental causes, with a dedicated link to read more.

Notable Features

Five physical boutiques listed in the footer. Ottawa, Oakville, Calgary, and two Toronto locations, Queen St. West and Yonge St., are named directly in the footer alongside the online store, tying the ecommerce site to a real retail footprint.

A reflective card-pull tool. Beyond standard shopping, the site runs an interactive contemplation-cards feature inviting visitors to set an intention and pull a card for a message, an engagement tool layered onto a jewelry storefront rather than a conventional quiz.

Appointment booking alongside shopping. A Book an Appointment link sits in the primary navigation next to Shop and Gifts, offering in-person or virtual consultations as a parallel path to browsing the catalogue.

bluboho Shop Category page example

bluboho Product page example

bluboho Checkout page example

bluboho footer example