I built the design around Rachel, an expat working mother in Hong Kong. She earns well but is time-poor, task-oriented, and price- conscious rather than brand-sensitive — a customer who wants guidance, not an endless catalogue. Crucially, Rachel shops on desktop, comparing products across multiple sites from a stationary spot at home. That persona drove a deliberate platform decision: desktop-first, not mobile. Furniture shopping isn't a task done on the go — it takes time, focus, and side-by-side comparison across tabs, all of which a small screen constrains. Designing mobile-first would have limite access to content and made comparison slower, so I designed for the context customers actually shop in. A customer journey map then traced Rachel's path from arrival to purchase, keeping the design honest about where friction needed to disappear.

Wireframes came first — several layout experiments tested against a grid to keep pages congruent, leaning on white space to let products breathe. The style guide followed. My competitive analysis had shown high-end furniture sites gravitating toward muted, pastel palettes, so I chose a muted canvas that lets the furniture and upholstery speak for themselves, with a deep emerald green as the primary accent for the navigation bar and category headings. Soft pinks, stone, and cream fill footers, dropdowns, and buttons — drawing attention to actions without competing with the imagery. Muted tones plus generous white space were the foundation of the sophisticated feel the brand needed.