Soleluxe Website Redesign

Inspiration

Our team chose the challenge of redesigning Soleluxe’s website because we connected with the concept and saw the potential for improvement in their website. Our process started off with an investigation of the existing site and we concluded that it was cluttered, not engaging, and lacking clear direction. Following this, we researched brands that we felt had intentional design and were more interactive and engaging, such as Glossier and Haricot Vert, along with the websites cited as the founders inspiration- Converse and Never Have I Ever. We identified the features we felt worked well and used those as guides.

What it does

The revamped website of Soleluxe drives engagement and improves experience for the consumer while clearly reflecting the brand’s identity. The colors, fonts, copy, and emojis were chosen intentionally to evoke the brand’s personality. Further to improve the customer experience and involve them more directly, we added the sections of shop by vibes, a newsletter, and customer features. Shop by vibes is a way of filtering based on vibes, this is a fun way for customers to browse the selection. The newsletter and customer features involve the users directly, which incentivizes them to interact with the brand again.

How we built it

We worked on creating a design system with colors and fonts that resonated with the brand’s identity of girl-aesthetic, bold, and youthful. 'Main character energy' is an important descriptor we drove home with lo-fi prototyping, where we did some paper UI wireframes and AI prototyping on Claude and ChatGPT. The AI prototypes in particular broadened the scope of our ideas, and influenced some of the features we took to our final prototype. We determined through this iterative process the features we wanted to prioritize to improve engagement and experience: a shop by vibes section, a newsletter, and customer features. With this in mind, we built up our hi-fi prototypes and then utilized FigmaMake to bring the prototype to life.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge we ran into was not having great existing assets to work with. Many of the images on the site were low-quality or didn’t highlight the product as well as it could. We resolved this issue by utilizing AI to clean up some of the product images and create new image assets. This was really pivotal as it allowed us to bring to life our vision for the website. Another challenge we ran into was trying to prototype on Figma Make, as some of the early generations did not accurately depict our hi-fi prototypes and created its own thing. Through careful prompting, we were able to make a product that was closer to our goal.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We feel that we were not only able to accurately represent Soleluxe’s brand values, but that we were able to amplify them through our choices and feature additions. We also maintained a good team harmony, ideating together and giving each other feedback. While there are many things we could add given more time, we are proud of what we were able to accomplish within this timeframe in terms of our final prototype as it gets across what we were trying to do.

What we learned

This was a lesson on tight deadlines and group collaboration in high-pressure environments. We met on Zoom calls and dmd feedback via Discord in order to get the job done. Learning to delegate energy into certain tasks, rather than scrutinizing minute details, is a tool that was sharpened this weekend. We explored Adobe Express' large toolkit as well. It saved us quite a bit of time when it came down to making pngs, QR codes, and other foundational assets. We also learned a great deal about Figma's prototyping features and design boarding; even though we all have some experience already, it was still a great learning experience overall!

What's next for Soleluxe Website Redesign

We'd absolutely love to keep working with Soleluxe to bring this to fruition. We'd love to keep developing the layout with other features, including a filtration system that adapts the shopping experience to match price restraints, popularity, and other sorting for a more personalized experience. We'd also love to expand on the brand system so it can include more UI components and more colors. Type sizing would be a great element to keep a consistant ratio on so it's uniform throughout. As creatives who love working with all kinds of media, we would love to provide image content that's really strong and authentic, not so much AI-generated as much as showcasing the charms in real-world settings. An illustrative quality would really provide the site with the final touches to really elevate it and again, bring that authentic quality.

Additional notes: we've included a Figma link to our final presentation, as well as to the live demo!