Bringing fashion to your fingertips. Website.
The goal of this project was to create a luxury brand website appealing to both foreign tourists and Japanese natives. While designing, I needed to avoid the design pitfall of clutter commonly seen on Japanese websites.
Web Designer & Developer
Company Owner, Manager, Japanese Copy Writer, 3rd Party Stakeholder, and Graphic Designer (for consultation).
7-weeks+
Professional Work & B2C (Mobile, Web)
The LUXITA website was made in 2017 for J-Cast JoliArts Co. Ltd.
My duties for this project were mainly website design, development, and branding. I first created UI mockup designs on Photoshop. After selecting the method, tools, and software for the build, I worked on coding the entire site. Unexpectedly I also aided in creating the site's content.
To complete this project, I utilized Photoshop, Bootstrap, Fullpage JS, SCSS, Flexbox, and HTML5.
The project had a constrained timeframe of 6-weeks. The launch's urgency matched with the time set for my stay in Japan. The original site made in Wix was scrapped, in its place would be the site I develop. A branding and style guide was needed, and I took the initiative to design the guidelines. Another obstacle was taking the text-heavy business plan and presentations and transforming it into user-friendly website content. An unexpected obstacle was the professional photo shoot for the nail designs taking place last day in Japan.
First, I set up a work structure by creating a collaborative Google Drive folder. Photos and content I requested were placed into respective folders on Google Drive. From there, I determined what was usable. Afterward, I set up a brand style. I also worked on mocking up and developing the website. I was able to complete ten usable web pages and their Japanese equivalent before my departure. Factor in: responsiveness, SEO, social media open graphs, accessibility, page speed, and performance.
The old saying "content is king" is a solemn concept even when working abroad. The content for the website needed to be both written in English and translated into Japanese. Having only partial text and majority lorem ipsum slowed down translation. And when a decision was made to start with translations despite the incomplete English text nor an approved final draft, I knew I'd be in for a daunting back and forth. Lesson Learned: Create the content early, if possible first!
Professional photos make a HUGE difference. Only the diamond nail collection and a few ita style nails had professional photos. Other collections, by comparison, seemed lackluster without professional shots. Photos taken on salonists' phones weren't enough. Interestingly the photoshoot took place on my last day on the job. I manage to create the website with the photos I had on hand. Once the photos were switched with those from the photoshoot the difference was evident. Lesson Learned: Place more pressure for professional photos and explain the need for an early photo shoot.
