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eCommerce Websites

Dark Horse

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 11, 2026

Dark Horse is a Cape Town outdoor living brand selling firepits, braais and outdoor kitchen fittings alongside hand-finished fire and pizza tools. The range is organized into the Sonny firepit collection, the Cole outdoor kitchen and standalone Fire Tools and Pizza Tools lines, aimed at homeowners furnishing an outdoor entertaining space. The site is built on Shopify.

Website Design

A black, white and steel palette. The interface carries no color of its own beyond a black top banner and black navigation text on white. Product photography in brushed steel and timber supplies the warmth, with a single gold or tan color swatch appearing as a material option rather than a UI accent.

System fonts throughout. Both headings and body text load the operating system default font stack rather than a custom typeface, so the site reads as plain and utilitarian instead of designed. Category names sit in a light serif-looking system font layered over full-bleed lifestyle photography in the hero band.

Full-width photo banners. Each category page opens with a wide lifestyle photograph, such as a kitchen island scene for Fire Tools, with the category name centered in white over the image.

Shopping Experience

Filterable category grids. The Fire Tools page lists six products in a grid with sidebar filters for in-stock status, price, series and usage, and each card shows a “From R” price and, where reviewed, a star rating.

Accordion product pages. A product page such as the Fire Spade shows the price, a Payflex buy-now-pay-later pill, an Add to Cart button, then three collapsed accordions: Description, Specs and Responsible Design. Color and quantity selectors sit above the accordions.

Standard Shopify checkout. The checkout carries the Dark Horse line-drawing logo at the top, a plain contact and delivery form, and three payment methods: Stitch (covering Apple Pay, Google Pay, Capitec Pay and card), Paygate and bank deposit. The Pay Now button is solid black.

Cross-sell block. Product pages close with a “You may also like” row of three related items before the footer.

Brand Storytelling

Durability as the pitch. Product copy leans on phrases like “The last spade you’ll ever buy” and “Made to last a lifetime,” positioning the range against disposable outdoor gear.

A South African craft note. Copy references the pieces being “Made in Cape Town” and built by hand, with a “Responsible Design” accordion on product pages addressing materials and sourcing rather than burying it in a separate policy page.

Notable Features

Flexible payment at the product level. The Payflex installment option is surfaced directly under the price on product pages, ahead of the Add to Cart button, rather than only appearing at checkout.

Promotional banner and testimonial copy. A rotating top banner runs a shipping discount code, and category pages close with a short block of promotional copy addressing the shopper directly, for example inviting them to shop ahead of a dinner party.

Minimal footer. The footer holds a single Quick Links column (Search, Contact, Shipping, T&Cs) and three social icons, with no newsletter signup or secondary navigation.

Dark Horse Shop Category page example

Dark Horse Product page example

Dark Horse Checkout page example

Dark Horse footer example

Nine Line Apparel

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 19, 2016

Nine Line Apparel was co-founded in 2012 by two brothers and US Army Veterans; CPT Tyler Merritt and CPT Daniel Merritt. Their vision was simple, to create a high quality clothing brand to be enjoyed by Patriotic Americans around the globe.

Caravan

By Catalin Zorzini  /  September 11, 2026

Caravan sells specialty single-origin coffee bags roasted in London, alongside brewing equipment and gift cards, as the retail arm of a combined coffee-roastery-and-restaurant group. Named lots such as Kisunga, Pitaya and Sholi Top Lot are priced from around 11 to 16 pounds, with subscriptions offered on select roasts. The storefront now lives on caravanandco.com, which the original caravancoffeeroasters.co.uk address redirects to, now that the coffee and restaurant sides of the business share one site.

Website Design

A pixel-grid display face. Headings, buttons and product labels run in a blocky monospace typeface that reads like an old terminal or dot-matrix printer, a deliberate contrast to the plain kraft-colored coffee bag mockups it sits on.

Black and safety yellow as the working palette. Buy buttons, the “Book a table” call to action and the sticky bottom purchase bar all run in a bright yellow against black text, while the footer flips to a black ground with the same yellow-on-black label style.

Colorful labels as the only product variation. Every coffee bag is shot as the same cream-colored pouch mockup; the labels wrapped around them, wavy stripes, solid brights, geometric prints, differentiate one roast from the next.

Shopping Experience

Filter by category, flavour, origin and process. The Shop page’s filter bar goes beyond price and type into coffee-specific facets, letting a buyer narrow by tasting flavour or processing method before ever reading a product page.

Origin data as a four-icon strip. Each product page carries a row of icons for Origin Country, Origin Region, Process and flavor notes directly under the buy box, ahead of a full-width photograph of the coffee cherries on the plant.

Grind and size chosen before adding to bag. The buy box requires a size (200g or 1kg) and a grind selection (whole bean, ground for espresso, ground for filter) before the yellow “Add to bag” button activates.

A sticky buy bar follows the scroll. Once a shopper scrolls past the main buy box, a condensed yellow bar with the product name, size, grind and price stays fixed at the bottom of the product page.

Brand Storytelling

Impact and sourcing given their own footer column. “Behind the Scenes” links to an Impact page and both restaurant and coffee Instagram accounts, separating the sourcing story from the transactional Support column.

Third-party marks stand in for a written story. A B Corporation seal and a Lipscore rating badge sit in the footer as the site’s credibility signals, rather than a founder essay.

Notable Features

A restaurant CTA inside the coffee shop. A “Book a table” button sits in the main header next to cart and account icons, keeping the restaurant side of the business one click away from the coffee catalog.

Wholesale kept separate from retail. “Wholesale Enquiries” and “Wholesale Login” form their own footer column, “Serve Our Coffee,” distinct from consumer support links.

Customer votes shown as a single aggregate score. Rather than individual reviews on the shop page, a “What our customers are saying” strip states one aggregate rating (4.7 out of 5 from 727 votes) beside a single pulled quote.

Caravan Shop Category page example

Caravan Product page example

Caravan Checkout page example

Caravan footer example