(CASE STUDY) ATE. · 2025 LAUNCH + BRAND
Apparel that turns the wearer into the main character.
Built ate. end-to-end — wordmark, palette, voice, custom Shopify theme, editorial PDP, story page. The brand promise: clothes that do what they’re supposed to — get noticed. The site had to feel like a magazine spread the moment it loaded, not a Shopify template with photos pasted in.
Responsive · live storefront at 1440 / 820 / 414
(01) PROBLEM
A new label with a strong voice — and no canvas to put it on.
The founders had the line, the manufacturing, and the thesis: clothes for people who don’t try too hard but somehow still end up the main character. What they didn’t have was the brand around it. No wordmark, no palette, no visual system, no storefront. The brief was: launch by Q3 2025, with everything from logo to theme to packaging working from a single visual language.
And — critically — the storefront had to feel like a magazine the moment it loaded. Not a Shopify theme with new photos. A genuine editorial.
(02) APPROACH
Brand-first, theme-second. The wordmark leads.
Started with the wordmark — a chunky lowercase “ate.” that reads as a logo and a sentence-ender at the same time. Locked the palette early: warm rust on cream, never pure black, never pure white. Built the type system around an editorial serif for headlines and a tight sans for product copy.
- Hero leads with the wordmark, type-only, oversized — same energy as the printed packaging tag inside the garment.
- Editorial PDP — fixed garment imagery on the left, scrolling story on the right. Add-to-cart sticks at the bottom of the right rail.
- “Our Story” page built as a scroll-triggered narrative. Each section is a Shopify section, so the team can extend the story without dev help.
- Brand voice in copy — conversational, character-led. Product titles feel like a friend describing the piece, not a SKU description.
(03) RESULT
Launch on schedule. The brand carries from website to packaging to feed.
- Launched on schedule — wordmark, theme, packaging, and Instagram identity all consistent from day one.
- Editorial PDP outperforms category averages on add-to-cart — the scrolling-story format keeps visitors reading instead of bouncing.
- “Our Story” page is the most-shared link on socials — visitors save it and come back to read.
- The team extends the story page without dev tickets — every narrative section is a Shopify section.
(SCOPE)
- Brand identity from scratch — wordmark, palette, voice, type system
- Custom Shopify theme — section-level Liquid for editor flexibility
- Editorial PDP with sticky-cart, fixed-image / scrolling-story layout
- “Our Story” scroll-narrative page (extensible via theme sections)
- Packaging + insert design carrying the brand voice off-screen