&why Studio

"Their capabilities in modular, scalable web design are superb and really impressed us." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We are a Tallinn-based company that provides organic advertising services through its digital media for a wide range of digital brands, primarily offering its services in the United States. What specific goals or objectives did you hire &why Studio to accomplish? - Develop search functionality capable of handling different page types such as product pages, brand pages, and informational articles - Ensure digital accessibility during development - Design the front-end & UX for an e-commerce website that aggregates and displays products from hundreds of sustainable fashion brands - Develop back-end infrastructure capable of scaling to tens of thousands of products - Automate various tasks related to populating and maintaining the product feed ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After considering various agencies and developers worldwide, we hired &why as part of a European Union co-funded grant project to develop a sustainable fashion advertising platform. This platform connects ethical fashion brands and consumers through product aggregation for better sustainable product discovery, comparison, and purchase. As part of this project, key deliverables included: - Fully functional website, including front-end & UX design, together with back-end infrastructure and a CMS capable of scaling to tens of thousands of products. - Ready-to-use modules that we could add ourselves independently to new pages via the CMS to create new pages of various types without the need for coding. - Tasks automation (through the use of AI) to help us reduce the manual work of adding and maintaining the large product feed. - Search functionality capable of differentiating different page types such as product pages, brand pages, and informational articles and serving them to the user based on their search. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success? The recently launched website was built and finished on schedule and has received greatly positive feedback from a wide range of stakeholders both in terms of design and UX. Close to 1000 products added to the site from numerous brands with the help of AI-enabled automation capabilities. The success and flexibility of the module-based design system: 140+ diverse pages built independently by us without the need for extra coding or development hours. The success of the migration and launch: Prior to this grant project, a website was already live on the same domain (but on another CMS,) and no technical issues arose while migrating from the old CMS to the new one earlier this month. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Their capabilities in modular, scalable web design are superb and really impressed us. We were initially worried that moving away from WordPress to another CMS would stop us from creating new pages ourselves efficiently, but the modular design system they built via DatoCMS allows us to design and combine unique pages through the use of modules even quicker than in WordPress, and the results are excellent. Secondly, going into the project, we already knew that we were aligned with &why in terms of values around sustainability. However, we were still surprised and happy to see how much all the team members were personally invested in our project's mission around improving sustainable product discovery and motivated to turn our vision into a success story.

&why has developed a brand identity that the company is confident to roll out for its next round of funding. The team has committed to understanding the business, its customers, and its challenges in-depth, and the resulting designs are professional and well-aligned with the client’s vision. What was the scope of their involvement? &why is coming up with a whole new branding for us. They’re putting together a brand manual and redesigning our website to reflect our new identity. We started the project with a lot of calls involving different members of our organization. Their team interviewed us, sent us questionnaires, reviewed our current design, and tried to understand our challenges. They talked to some of our customers and spent a reasonable amount of time understanding our business. What is the team composition? There’s a total of 5–7 people working on the project, but the team size varies depending on what phase we’re in. How did &why perform from a project management standpoint? They always keep us up to date through Slack and via phone calls. Everything is pretty well organized. We collaborate on the design and exchange feedback through Figma, but we use Brandpad.io for general branding activities. Thus far, &why has pretty much matched the budget that we had discussed in the beginning. I think we’re spending way less than we would have with other agencies. They have a very clear list of how many hours each stage would take. We always feel well-informed, and we’re pleased that they stick to the schedules and the budget. What did you find most impressive about them? I really like the design and the outcome, but what really impresses me is how they try to understand our requirements in detail. They spend a lot of time on calls to make sure that we’re on the same page. At the end of it, they have a deep understanding of our vision. It’s not superficial at all. It’s a lot of fun to work with them actually. Are there any areas they could improve? No, we’re happy. They’ve stuck to the budget, and the outcome has been cool. They are quite fast, and the communication has been good. Do you have any advice for potential customers? You’ll be in good hands with &why. They’ll guide you through the branding and design process, especially if you’re unfamiliar with it. They’ll work at a good pace, and they’ll take care of everything.