Samarkand is more than a tech company - it’s a business that understands brands. We brought the brand identity up-to-date - moving away from the clinical feel of a software site and adding bold, striking elements, line-drawn illustrations, and bright pops of colour to reflect the fact that Samarkand is seen to many of its clients as more of a branding and marketing agency. 

A brand that balances creativity with technology

Samarkand makes scaling eCommerce businesses, simple. However, with multiple products and services to showcase, and a target audience that includes both eCommerce brands and investors, we created a site that’s clean and minimal but still looks and feels premium. It follows a user journey that's straightforward and simple, and enables Samarkand to communicate its benefits easily and effectively. 

Translating a complex concept with a clean design

Samarkand

The visual branding was all about refinement. Acupanel’s current logo typography was uncomfortably wide, so we worked on spacing to create a more readable wordmark and clean, modern logo. We paired that with a new colour palette featuring darker shades of green as background colours alongside lighter, complementary shades. The result? A more premium look and feel that lets the product shots do the talking. 

A twist (or two) on a classic typeface

Acupanel is an industry-first, so emphasising the brand’s originality was a must. We went back to basics, running workshops with the team to outline tone, rhythm and personality. We landed on a new brand voice that’s adventurous, inspiring, and real. 

We then turned our attention to copywriting. We used pairs of headings to add a signature characteristic to the content  - plus, give a nod to the fact that Acupanel’s products are all about style and substance. We told stories about the brand’s heritage to inspire readers. And, above all things, we ensured Acupanel’s voice was warm, genuine, and reflected the fact that installing its products was reassuringly simple. Because to 'do it yourself' should mean just that. 

Showing you’re a pioneer — not just saying you are

Behind Acupanel is a team of expert craftsmen with a love of design. Its out-of-the-box panelling is an industry first,  so it only made sense that we shake up the average e-commerce store structure with something out-of-the-ordinary. 

We designed and developed an immersive, interactive website featuring layers of texture, continuous movement and animation, and striking photography. We incorporated audio clips, annotated imagery, and real-life inspiration galleries to elevate the entire user experience. Shoppers can select colours, apply finishes and calculate how many panels they’ll need with the coverage calculator. And traders can sign up for exclusive discounts through Acupanel’s partner program. Everything that shopping with a premium brand should be. 

A design that’s out of the ordinary 

Acupanel

We took inspiration from the current Hearts of London site, using a similar colour palette and iconography, but elevating the typography and entire design to give a cleaner look and feel. Queensmith already had a collection of beautiful product and lifestyle photography, so we stripped everything back to let the imagery do the talking. 

Refining and aligning a brand image

Enabling users to buy ready-to-wear rings online meant offering a huge amount of options. From the metal and diamond shape right down to colour, cut, and clarity - everything could be fully customised before it was added to the basket. This meant applying special logic, creating complex filters, and ensuring order information could be directly submitted via an integration with Claris FileMaker.

But it wasn’t just the ring selection process that needed a simple, easy-to-use interface - we also created a bespoke check-out that included options to select delivery, create an account, as well the process payment. 

Fully customisable, right down to the check-out

The site was going to hold a huge amount of information, and the team at Queensmith would need to update and maintain the content going forward. That’s why we adopted an atomic approach to design, creating a strong style guide to ensure consistency across all elements and developing flexible content blocks in a whole host of variations so that the site could easily evolve over time.

A brand that balances creativity with technology

Translating a complex concept with a clean design

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