Shopify’s Design Awards spotlight beautiful online shops

The first thing you notice when you visit Whipping Post‘s homepage, is the rustic brown images portraying carefully crafted leather products. Brad Miller, an Ottawa-based designer, is behind the web design for the company selling guitar accessories and vintage messenger bags from Atlanta-based former musician Ryan Barr. Brad Miller founded his firm Out of the Sandbox specifically to develop themes for Shopify’s ecommerce platform. For those unfamiliar with Shopify it is a commerce platform that allows anyone to easily sell online, at their retail location, and everywhere in between. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales. Shopify currently powers over 60,000 retailers in 100 different countries, including: Tesla Motors, Gatorade, Forbes, Amnesty International, Encyclopedia Britannica, CrossFit, and many more. When Brad Miller entered the design into the first Ecommerce Design Awards held by Shopify, and all three judges quickly decided that the design was simply breathtaking and deserved to win. The judges deciding over the different designs include design heavyweights such as web designer Tina Roth Eisenberg as well as designer, author and publisher Jeffrey Zeldman who founded A List Apart magazine, the third judge is Shopify’s Chief Design Officer Daniel Weinand. When asked about what makes Whipping Post unique Tina Roth Eisenberg answered “The Whipping Post site feels thoughtful and intentional: Strong photography, tasteful typography, appropriate white space, as well a beautifully balanced color palette. An ecommerce site should first and foremost celebrate and elevate the products. Whipping Post does that.”

Brad Miller will take home a $5,000 Apple gift card as a result of his first place designation.

The second place went to GREATS Brand’s site designed by Wondersauce, a digital design and development agency based in New York. When asked why GREATS was chosen as the runner-up Weinand stated “GREATS shows off big images in a catalog grid style fashion,” then added “The crisp photography gives me a good sense of the texture and quality. I am immediately drawn in, clicking through handsome footwear, only to see it all beautifully deconstructed on a very focused product page.” The third price went to Goodwin + Goodwin – a custom signage shop based in the U.K., the site was designed by Paul Goodwin. Zeldman said the following about the design of Goodwin + Goodwin, “When your product epitomizes beauty and elegance of design, your website and shopping cart had better demonstrate those same virtues,” before adding “Fortunately, the browsing and shopping experience at Goodwin + Goodwin’s website lives up to the high bar set by the company’s product line… A beautiful site. And an effective one. I got lost shopping when I was supposed to be judging.” The two runners-up each received $500 Apple gift cards, and will automatically be added to Shopify’s Experts database, a resource used by merchants  when looking for designers, developers, marketers or photographers to help customize their shop. For other honorable mentions check Shopify’s post announcing the winners.