Chicwish

Web + Branding Redesign

2019

For one of my first web design projects, I redesigned the branding and website for an online clothing boutique called Chicwish. I’ve followed and shopped this brand for quite a few years - mostly because they are pretty brazen in creating “designer-inspired” products. I can’t afford Chloé, so Chicwish has been a great alternative for trendy statement pieces. The product feels very fresh and thoughtful compared to other 'trendy' companies like H&M and Zara.

As I’ve spent so much time on Chicwish’s website, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to become frustrated with their UI. The website reads like a shady recreation of a traditional online clothing store - complete with lack of white space and low-res images out the wazoo. The whole website feels busy and overloaded with content, which takes away from the beauty of the product. Despite my UI complaints, Chicwish does do something well: their product photography. The brand puts out beautiful editorial photoshoots that give customers plenty of inspiration on how to wear Chicwish product.

One of my favorite features about Chicwish’s website is their focus on the customers. Chicwish has a great system of featuring user-submitted images and reviews, and bloggers take full advantage of it. The end result is each product page is chock-full of high-quality, user-submitted photos - perfect inspiration for customers wondering how to pair each clothing item. I think this focus on the customer really pays off. By shining a spotlight on their customers, Chicwish creates a community of stylists and fashionistas who are eager to wear product and share their outfits on social media. It’s a smart marketing move.

For this project, I designed everything in Adobe Illustrator. In retrospect this might not have been the best idea, but it was the program I was most familiar with at the time. Soon after this redesign, I taught myself Figma and was very happy to use a program more tailored to UI design.

Website Redesign

Homepage

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One of the most frustrating aspects of Chicwish’s website is the busyness of their UI. When navigating to Chicwish.com, you’re immediately confronted with endless content - various themed edits of product, ads offering small discounts, and entirely too many fonts. There’s also a major lack of whitespace across the website, which ends up making it feel claustrophobic and chaotic.

My first priority in redesigning the website was making it feel more open and focused. I eliminated the black navigation bar along with the random ads that sit at the top of the page. I separated the content into sections - a hero section to outline Chicwish’s latest trends, a section focused on customer reviews, and a final section to highlight new product.

Excerpt from Chicwish Redesign: Bottoms Page

Product Page

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Redesigning Chicwish’s product pages was a satisfying task. I was most concerned with the confusing organization of search filters, which were ultimately just a list of links on the left-hand side of the screen. By organizing the filters into their own sections, providing more whitespace, and creating more hierarchy with fonts, I was able to create a cleaner, more functional filter system.

I also cleaned up the product display and fixed up the product typography to give the impression of higher-quality, designer product.

Product Detail Page

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In redesigning Chicwish’s product detail pages, I was focused most on organization of information. There is a lot of content on each product page - maybe more content than necessary.

I kept the general layout of the original product page, but organized the information and photos in a way that flows nicely and does not detract from the product itself. Gone are the random chunks of bright red text reading “Save 13% off” or “Sale ends soon”. Gone are the “100% satisfaction guaranteed” and “interest free payments with afterpay” stickers. The end result is a clean, informative detail page that keeps your focus on the things that matter - product photos, colorways, sizes, and price.

The customer review sections for each product also needed some help. As with the rest of the website, the customer reviews are laid out in a way that is confusing to digest. The use of typography feels random, and the lack of white space makes it difficult to know what to focus on.

In redesigning the review section, I organized the content into separate, distinct sections. The customer photos are super important in convincing new purchasers of a product’s value, so I made these images larger and more spaced out. The product stats (ratings, fit) have their own section with a color scheme that makes sense. I also made the reviews easier to digest with whitespace and text hierarchy.

Branding Update

As Chicwish is an online store, it felt right to redesign some of their branding alongside the website. Chicwish certainly has a functional brand direction, but it doesn’t feel solid. Their logo reads like a generic serif, and the large variety of novelty fonts used elsewhere water down the value of the logo a bit. Brand colors are difficult to determine other than a traditional black, grey, and white color scheme. From my perspective, there’s a distinct lack of point of view in the company’s branding. I set out to fix that.

Back Neck Label

Sample Hang Tags

Mockup of Chicwish lookbook, closed and with page turning

Sample Lookbook

As an apparel brand, having a lookbook can be highly useful in communicating the value of your product. Chicwish puts out beautiful, editorial-level photoshoots of their product - there is plenty of opportunity for them to take their own photos and compile them into a quarterly lookbook. Combined with some style advice and outfit pairings, a lookbook would really build upon the perceived value of Chicwish as a brand.

Chicwish

Web + Branding Redesign

Website Redesign

Homepage

Product Page

Product Detail Page

Excerpt from footer

Branding Update

Back Neck Label

Sample Hang Tags

Sample Lookbook

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