Herzog & de Meuron

Design / Shopify / Shopify Plus / User Experience

Herzog & de Meuron

A Store for Swiss Design Legends

In 2022, we were honored to be chosen by design titans Herzog & de Meuron as creative agency for the design and development of their Shopify Plus store, for their newly formed interiors line: Herzog & de Meuron Objects.


Set to hold a range of exclusive pieces for the home from dining tables to coat hooks, this marks the auspicious architectural firms first foray into direct to consumer products, giving fans of the brand and design nerds alike, a slice of their iconic Swiss style.

Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron

About Herzog & de Meuron

Herzog and de Meuron have long been revered not just in architecture circles, but beyond thanks to their unique and groundbreaking buildings including 56 Leonard Street in New York, The Birds Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing, Prada’s flagship store in Tokyo and the gravity defying VitraHaus in Germany.

After 45 years as an architecture group, Herzog and de Meuron took the decision to offer their inimitable styling and quality to fans of their brand by creating a range of furniture and accessories which can be purchased by anyone, online.

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H&dM's innovative website design featuring a contemporary aesthetic, intuitive navigation, and engaging visual elements.
Herzog & de Meuron
Immersion

Herzog and de Meuron are renowned for their elevated sense of design and attention to detail, so it was important we approached this project in a way that the brand themselves would.

We spent time pouring over their new collection looking at ways to adopt similar sensibility in the design of the store. The brief was unlike most; they didn’t want this to look and feel like a regular online store, furthermore, the objective wasn’t really to sell a huge amount of products.

This, as you might imagine, was music to the ears of our design team…

Herzog & de Meuron
Design Concepts

During the initial design phase, we thoroughly explored a diverse array of options, ranging from stark minimalism to more unconventional approaches. Our exploration encompassed various aspects such as scale, typography, and interactions, with the aim of crafting an exceptional design. However, it was a pivotal moment in an early meeting where they shared their design philosophy that profoundly influenced our direction.

Their phrase, "We find freedom in exploration," left a lasting impact on our minds and served as the guiding principle for our design endeavor. Taking this concept quite literally, we embarked on creating a homepage that defied the norms of a typical Shopify Store. By amalgamating various elements from their work, including inspiration, usability, design, and the products themselves, we crafted an interactive mood board that allowed for seamless navigation and the absorption of information in a holistic manner, departing from a linear approach.

The resonance of this idea with the team encouraged us to extend its application to other facets of the design, resulting in a cohesive and innovative design concept.

Colors

Just like architects build ramps at a certain angle for ADA compliance, a website design company also needs to ensure ADA compliance. Making a website ADA Compliant involves considering factors like colors and how it’s built to be compatible with screen readers. Inspired by the color of the multi-volume work HERZOG & DE MEURON ‒ THE COMPLETE WORKS, we chose a palette that is both colorful and ADA compliant. The menu design is reminiscent of their series of books, featuring a bold yellow navigation panel that contrasts nicely with the minimal UI.

Ecommerce Development

Herzog was built with the same simplicity that makes their objects so beautiful. 

We opted for a low code solution that offers speed matching the most optimized sites as well as offering the functionality they need to let there product shine. Their homepage grid offers a random assortment of some of their latest news, products, and features in a managed and organized way, and the rest of their site offers an equally bright and concise way to shop. 

Powered almost exclusively by Liquid and CSS, this site elevates the development idea of restraint and offers a break from the currently saturated market of over-engineered themes and sites,

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