Mikala Djørup is a Danish jewellery designer. Historically, she worked and sold her pieces from her workshop in the Oxo Tower in London. But with the advent of Covid in 2020, and the resulting fall in city centre walk-in trade, she decided to close her workshop and focus on selling online.

While Mikala already had a website (on Big Cartel), she did not have the flexibility she needed to run an online store and wanted to move to Shopify. She also needed a much more professional design that reflected the fact that she mainly makes one of a kind, high-end jewellery. With regards to the design and structure of the new site, Mikala was very clear what she wanted, so we worked very closely in the design process.

One of the challenges of the site was the product photography. While I worked on the build, Mikala photographed the pieces herself. I then edited all the photos to flatten the background colour to give them a neater and more uniform look before uploading them to the new site.

Most Shopify themes have hardworking, but busy, home pages. We wanted something pared back, so we decided on having a space where Mikala can upload a photo relating to her background, inspiration or craft, next to a finished piece of jewellery. You see a random combination when you visit the site.

While I used Brooklyn as a starter theme (this is closest to what we wanted in terms of functionality), the site bears no resemblance to it. I heavily edited it so it reflected our bespoke design, added extra features such as a product zoom as well as many more theme options so that Mikala can easily edit content herself.