SEKKISEI

SEKKISEI carries real authority in Japan and throughout Asia, however, In North America, that same equity wasn't translating well enough. The new site needed to keep the cultural weight in a different market  without diluting that culture into a stereotype or something generic.

Before any screens and wires were designed, I needed a point of view the team could build against. After digging into stakeholder input and customer research, it emerged that their ideal customers buy into rituals and routines. The products themselves seemed to be a side benefit.

That distinction became the design philosphy for the project. The task was to celebrate SEKKISEI's philosophy of harmony, seasonality, and intimacy with nature without exoticizing it to the North American market.

I led the creative direction around a tone that is familiar to the market, while retaining heritage.

I expanded customer journeys from a single transactional pathway into multiple entry points to encourage discovery and education so that customers can reach products however they came to the site,

Key decisions made include treating reviews, loyalty, and social proof as supporting texture across those pathways. We also decided to build a custom Shopify storefront capable of geolocation for U.S. and Canadian markets. This allowed for separate pricing, currency, and shipping workflows running through a single admin panel.

I stayed close to the client team throughout, translating cultural nuance into design decisions in both directions to ensure the North American team understood what mattered about the brand, and making sure KOSÉ trusted where the direction was headed before we were deep into execution.