VIA PIAVE 33 | Balla Diagne

Background

VIA PIAVE 33 is a luxury fashion brand focused on sustainability and respect. My role was designing the e-commerce and a strong brand identity that refleced the contemporary spirit of the brand.

Branding

I decided to highlight the uniqueness and quality of each garment as the core value of the brand. By doing so I created an environment were the products could be more valuable than the logo.

I then created a design language around this concept to let the products be the main protagonists of the user interface. A strong decision was having buttonless texts and only play with attributes.

Usability

As the first step I decided to prioritize usability by analyzing the thumb zone. Areas that are easily accessible by the thumb are used for menus and navigation, while areas that are more difficult reaching are used for low proprity informations and secondary actions.

Adhering to the thumb zone guidelines, I set the structure by utilizing a three-column grid.

Interface Design

People usually keep articles in the free hand, in a bag or a basket. In fashion in particular, they love to constantly confront and visualize the different items they are considering. From this idea I designed an interacive basket preview section that is always visible to the user.

We used the models names on the lookbook to be more transparent and give credit to the people who are actually at the centre of this industry. By using models names we are not just showing looks, we’re also introducing real people to the user.

The number three is consistently recurring in the brand as a philosophy of life, not to exceed or focus on too many things at the same time. In cart, users can only view three items at a time.

Conclusion

VIA PIAVE 33 has a very strong dna that I believe really helped me achieve this. My work covered UX/UI design, branding, typography, imagery, and content across various platforms. Alongside the website, I designed an NFC tool to help promote the brand launch.

Post-launch, I also provided ongoing maintenance support for content management systems.

Special thanks to Kalidou Diagne, Alessandro Spaggiari, Francesca Spaggiari, Elisa Bettella, Paolo Prendin, Ismaël Moumin, Lorenzo Basili, Eva Silasta, Gaia Dell’Aquila, Mariotti Marta, Martina Porcelli.