Discovery in Bangalore
I travelled to Bangalore to lead stakeholder interviews and design sprint workshops with the Swadesh team. This included persona creation, competitor analysis, and journey mapping sessions with department heads, drawing out their motivations and the customer insight they'd already gathered.
Competitor Analysis
We also conducted competitor store tours across Bangalore. From luxury garment and jewellery boutiques to everyday department stores, to understand where Swadesh sat in the market and what their world looked and felt like.
Design in London
Back in London I translated the discovery into UX: mapping user journeys, developing concepts for the site architecture, and producing low-fidelity designs in Figma.
UI Design
A UI designer then brought the visual identity to life — developing a look that felt as considered and crafted as the products themselves. The palette, typography and imagery needed to hold two things at once: the warmth and richness of Indian craft tradition, and the restraint expected of a luxury retail experience.
The result was a site that could carry everything from apparel and jewellery to furniture, art and wellness goods, while showcasing the craft, traditions and people from where they goods had been originally made.
Reflection
Swadesh works with close to 12,000 artisans, offering fair trade opportunities and a platform for craft traditions that might otherwise go unseen by a global audience. Being part of giving that work a home and doing it with the care it deserved made this one of the more meaningful projects I've been involved in.