Case study · Shopify rebuild
NorthRail Studio —
a storefront built to convert.
A full Shopify rebuild for a design-led DTC studio: research, IA, wireframes, a tight visual system and a measurable launch — 2.1× conversion rate in 90 days.
Project brief
A design-led studio with a storefront holding it back.
NorthRail Studio designs and sells small-batch home objects. The catalog and content were strong; the storefront was slow, cluttered and inconsistent with the brand's quiet, confident voice. We rebuilt the experience from sitemap to ship.
Project timeline
Six weeks, five phases.
- Week 1
Discovery & audit
Stakeholder interviews, analytics audit, competitor teardown.
- Week 2
IA & wireframes
Sitemap, user flows, low-fidelity screens, validated with users.
- Week 3–4
Visual system
Type, color, components, motion language and brand cues.
- Week 5
High-fidelity build
Hi-fi mocks, Shopify theme build, content migration, QA.
- Week 6
Launch & measure
Soft launch, instrumentation, post-launch optimization loop.
Design process
Discover → Define → Design → Deliver.
Listen to the team and the customer. Audit what's already true.
Frame the real problem in a sentence the team agrees on.
Sketch → wireframe → hi-fi. Validate at every fidelity.
Build, ship, measure, iterate. Hand off a system, not a file.
Problems & solutions
What was broken, and what replaced it.
Problems
- Theme bloat from 4 years of installed apps — Largest Contentful Paint 4.8s on mobile.
- Sitemap mirrored the org chart, not how customers actually shopped.
- PDP buried specs and reviews below three full-bleed marketing blocks.
- Brand identity drifted across pages — six button styles, three logos in use.
Solutions
- Rebuilt on a lean, headless-adjacent Shopify 2.0 theme — zero unused JS.
- Re-architected navigation around the top 5 customer jobs-to-be-done.
- PDP redesigned around proof + clarity: specs, reviews, shipping above the fold.
- Single design system: 8-point spacing, 1 type pair, 1 button family, 1 motion curve.
User persona
Designed around one buyer.
"Considered Casey", 32–48
Mid-career urban professional. Buys home objects rarely, but researches deeply. Reads reviews, cares about materials, expects a storefront that feels as considered as the product.
- • Find pieces that last
- • Confidence before purchase
- • Fast, calm checkout
- • Slow product pages
- • Missing specs
- • Pushy upsells
- • Mobile-first
- • Reads 8+ reviews
- • Saves to wishlist
Information architecture
A sitemap built around customer jobs.
- Hero
- Featured Collections
- Editorial
- Proof
- Newsletter
- By Category
- By Use-case
- New Arrivals
- Sale
- Gallery
- Specs
- Reviews
- Pairs With
- Shipping/Returns
- Story
- Studio
- Sustainability
- Press
- FAQs
- Contact
- Shipping
- Care Guides
Typography
One display, one body, no exceptions.
For headlines, product titles and editorial moments.
For UI, body copy and product details — calm, neutral, legible at every size.
Color guide
A restrained palette with one signal accent.
Low-fidelity wireframe
Structure before style.
Greyscale wireframes pressure-test hierarchy before pixels are spent on it.
High-fidelity wireframe
The same blueprint, dressed in brand.
Visual look
The shipped storefront, in the wild.