Design for a world-class designer

Faculty is highly knowledgeable and professional, in both web design and development, as well as in niche fields like type design. They’re also kind people who are a joy to work with.Jessica Hische

Jessica Hische is a New York Times best-selling author and world-class illustrator, letterer, and type designer. When she asked for our help updating her ecommerce site, we jumped at the chance to collaborate.

The work

Like a lot of small businesses, Jessica relies on an off-the-shelf ecommerce platform. It’s cost-effective and fulfills her basic needs. She also likes the workflows that she and her team (hi Jessica’s mom!) use to update the site and fulfill orders. But Jessica knew there was room for improvement in the experience for her customers.

The results

Jessica’s new ecommerce site gives her fans a fun, secure shopping experience that’s as delightful as the rest of her work and brand. And Jessica can keep using her low-cost, off-the-shelf platform and existing workflows.

Custom design for an off-the-shelf site

Jessica is known for attention to detail in her witty and whimsical illustrations, type, and hand-lettering.

We wanted to reflect the care that Jessica puts into her work in the design of her shop. Like her, we know that investing in visible details pays returns in spades. It makes your customer more confident in you, your brand, and all the details they can’t see.

So, as Henry put it, “We adapted the beautiful minutiae of her work to the new design.” Small but thoughtful improvements to the design made a significant impact.

When customers land on her homepage, Jessica’s posters and prints float onto the screen and appear to hang on a wall. Likewise, her other products aren’t displayed in a grid, as most off-the-shelf ecommerce sites do. As a result, Jessica’s shop no longer looks and feels like a template; it feels as charming as her portfolio site.

Unique layouts for unique products

Like many others, the ecommerce platform Jessica uses offered a one-size-fits-all solution for displaying products: a rectangular box. While this can accommodate lots of different products—t-shirts, stickers, posters, and more—we knew there were better ways to distinguish the items Jessica sells, especially her custom fonts.

Now posters look like posters, pins look like pins. And when customers browse Jessica’s fonts, it’s clear they’re fonts and not posters. Customers can also test her fonts by typing words and sentences with them before they make a purchase.

Jessica’s customers get a better shopping experience because they can more easily, visually identify and find what they’re looking for. And Jessica gets to keep using the asset management system she’s used to.

A secure, fun place for fans to shop

TLS is a standard security technology for securing transactions on ecommerce sites. It’s not hard to set up, but without it, your site isn’t secure, and customers will know it. When browsers flag a site as not secure, 85% of potential customers will avoid it. Getting TLS set up correctly was a small, quick win we could provide for Jessica to help improve her conversion rates.

Now fans are not only more likely to stay on her ecommerce site, but they’re also more likely to have a fun experience. With just a little bit of code, we added a lot of interactivity. When customers scroll or hover across her site, sweet details and animations reveal themselves. These effects mirror the charm we and other fans love in Jessica’s work but they don’t make her site slow or otherwise hinder performance.

Because we use modern technology, her site is not only more fun, but also faster, secure, and more accessible.