Rising Sun & Co.

Apparel Website and Blog

Product Design • User Experience • Content Strategy • Copywriting • Front-End Development

In 2010 I was responsible for retail merchandising and overseeing production at Rising Sun & Co. During my time there I redesigned the website and blog in order to foster a growing audience for the brand's story. The brand is known for its turn-of-the-century style denim tailoring that uses working relics to craft apparel that imparts an education on the history of workwear and integrity of local manufacturing.

At a time when skeuomorphic design elements were reaching their peak, I pushed the boundaries with a responsive design (just months after Ethan Marcotte coined the term) to capture more mobile engagement for the brand. The site’s textures and design elements were replicas of the actual retail/workshop space that brand occupied at the time, an ode to haberdasheries of yesteryear.

I think it's no coincidence that responsive design was slow to become a priority while skeuomorphism was becoming common to UI design at the time—designers had to stop creating layouts down to the pixel and learn to approach things with fluidity and content choreography in mind.

The wood panel background was a replica of the wainscot found in clothing shop's interior, the masthead was modeled after the same sign that adorned the outside of the building, and the brass plates were an homage to those on each of the decades-old sewing machines in the back of the shop, where all of the clothing was manufactured.

Besides successfully crafting a responsive site with such strong graphic elements, one of my favorite facets was the drop cap at the start of each blog post.