We've continued supporting the team, developing the site to become a leading voice in its niche industry. We were delighted when they asked us to help develop a product range and e-commerce store to commercialise their business.
A Tudor inspired product range
Debbie and Melita wanted to develop a range of beautiful, original and modern high quality items that utilised the brand language we'd developed—without being viewed as promo items.
Using the Tudor knot-inspired icons and patterns we'd designed for the website we set about creating a style guide.
During the development of the initial brand we had experimented with a set of more geometric shapes inspired by Tudor architecture, so we decided to revisit this in order to create a second collection of products.
A third range was also required, based on quotes by famous Tudors, so we set up a typographic style to maintain consistency. The guidelines were designed to enable manufacturers to easily interpret them for application to a wide range of products—from mugs and tea towels to cushion covers and tote bags.
Getting online with Shopify
With our style guidelines in the hands of manufacturers it was time to look at the online store. It was clear that the design and structure of the store needed to follow the main site so visitors could comfortable switch between the two without confusion—but different enough to know where they were.
We utilised to the look and feel of the main site which is managed with Craft CMS, but decided on Shopify as our e-commerce platform of choice for the store.
Shopify was more than powerful enough to manage the relatively small product range for launch, but flexible enough to evolve as more products are added.
Of course Shopify also has the added bonus of removing any headaches when it comes to payment processing as it's designed to handle all that stuff 'out of the box'.
The ability to create specific collections within Shopify has also been incredibly useful for the shop—especially when managing the three distinct ranges.
The specifically designed product range and online store has taken the Tudor Times brand beyond an enthusiastic passion project and into a commercial venture. Visit the shop at shop.tudortimes.co.uk
