Bringing to life the vision of sustainable fashion e-commerce
High functional interactive prototype and brand language lands an investor follow up for an idea stage startup
The problem
Cloe is an early-stage startup aiming to disrupt the fashion e-commerce landscape to support local economies and enable collective action toward sustainable fashion. The company needed to go from idea to tangible product concept and branding to engage customers and investors for feedback and learnings, demonstrating the idea clearly.
Role: Product & Business Design Strategist
Team: Evangelos, Aleksandra
Year: 2022
Tasks: Experience Strategy, UX Design, Workshop Facilitation, Prototyping, Visual Design and Branding
Results & Impact
Developed and designed the core experience from concept to interactive prototype. Designed the initial branding concept from logo to company website.
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High functional prototype to engage customers
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Cohesive brand Language across touch points
Investor Follow up
Key moments - trade offs
Simplicity Without the Overload of Choice
Designing for an early-stage startup with only the founder's vision and competitive landscape as main drivers creates the risk of trying to do too much and overwhelming users. After analyzing competitors and creating design principles from the company's vision, we decided to amplify the most important factors—transparency and personalization—without the overload of social features.
Content and IA strategy based on customer mental models
Initial wireframes for collaboration, focusing on personalization and transaprency
Not Everything is Equal in a Show and Tell
After wireframing, time and resource constraints required balancing what would be designed in detail and the prototype scope, needing prioritization for maximum impact. Together with the founder, we prioritized the core need for the prototype—engaging customers and investors for feedback—and opted for detailed design of only 3 experience flows representing core features, presenting the necessary experience narrative.
Detailed design and interactive prototype of core flows
Branding That Communicates the Founder's Vision Before Trends
During the design of the first brand identity version, we wanted to avoid the common sustainability-focused approach with a "green" foundation and needed differentiation that truly reflected the vision. To give life to the vision of respect based on inclusiveness, community, and sensitivity, we created a brand identity that communicated these values authentically rather than following industry trends.
Logo exploration
Company website with applied brand language
Learnings
Vision is the Biggest Asset in Early-Stage Conceptualization: When making an abstract vision tangible and creating a new product and brand, this vision is the biggest source of inspiration and an anchor for better decision making.
Momentum is Built on Tangible Artifacts: Prototypes, a website, and a cohesive narrative are some of the best tools to support a founder in keeping their energy high during the process and engaging them with the vision, showing they are one step closer.