Overview

Blum theme is one of the first theme on Shopify Theme Market from a Vietnamese theme provider (and may be the first Vietnamese design team on this premium theme market)

After our first submission to the Shopify theme market was rejected due to the lack of design uniqueness and functionality, the BoD decided to gather a new team of designers to rebuild the theme from scratch.

2 key criteria

Learning from the first failed attend, we understood that to be enlisted in Shopify premium theme market, a theme must meet two important criteria

The process

Define user persona and CJM

First, our product team analysis the customer data gathered from our marketing department to create a comprehensive idea about our targeted merchant and buyer.

After marketing team doing their research, the product team choose to focus on three main archetypes in the fashion industry:

Design theme feature set

After understanding our user’s want and need, we set out to define scope of possible feature sets by:

• Investigate the best e-commerce websites to understand their secret recipes

• Read best practice documentation from reputable sources like NNgroup or Baymard

• Look for our competitors in the theme market

In the process, we also consult our developers to understand the technical constrain that some complex features might bring.

Design visual characteristics and high-fidelity mockup

We define 3 main keywords to characterise our theme

• Bold: energetic, confident, active, adventurous,...

• Convincing: reliable, delicate

• Belonging: connected, nostaigic, familiar

Then, we create a moodboard showing list of websites that have some of these characteristics, analyze to understand what (and what not) visual properties are used to boast our characteristics.

Our moodboard

After having all the ingredients we need from the moodboard, each team member would create their own basic mockup. Within a short period of time, I chose to laser-focus on the bold characteristic by highlighting the use of color, large type-scale, and the immersive asymmetric layout while maintaining sufficient design for other properties.

A homepage mockup for the visual direction

The result

The final result is the combination of 4 designers best ideas. We built 3 styles from the theme to demonstrate its power. Before leaving the project, I was in charge of the Mondo themes - targeting unisex customers. The mood for this style is young and vibrant.

View live page: https://blum-mondo.myshopify.com/