Luckyleo Dancewear is an online-only retailer of handmade custom dancewear. Before we connected, Luckyleo operated their business using Etsy as a storefront.
After gaining a lot of followers and traction in the dance world, they wanted to expand the company to have its own brand identity. They hired me to design their website, brand identity, content, and they have been my
longest running client.
I've done several website re-designs, countless ads, business cards, a logo redesign, Instagram content designs, a wholesale packet, designed their sister companies brand identity, created a wholesale website for them, and developed new features for their website. Since the website
launch, they've sky rocketed from 300 total orders to tens of thousands of orders shipping to over 60 countries.
The discovery phase with Luckyleo proved to be an incredibly enjoyable experience. Collaborating closely with the owners, we held numerous strategy sessions, crafting inspiring mood boards, and defining the driving force behind the business. Thorough competitor research enabled me to identify Luckyleo's unique strengths, allowing us to accentuate these qualities through thoughtful design. By laying a strong foundation of research and marketing strategy, we laid the groundwork for their remarkable success. We strategically decided to highlight the personal stories of the owners, former professional ballerinas who found a new path in sewing after their dance careers were affected by injuries. This decision was pivotal in creating a "lifestyle" brand that evokes the powerful emotions associated with dance. The brand direction I crafted for Luckyleo had a profound impact on their customers, leading to the emergence of a distinctive mini-culture within the dance world. The emphasis on authenticity and storytelling resonated deeply with their customers, establishing Luckyleo as a brand that genuinely connects with its audience.
A major part of the discovery process was learning about successful Ecommerce through extensive research on how users interact with online stores and websites. Every single aspect of the site needed to be planned out to maximize conversion rates. We wanted each piece of content to be intuitive and to either funnel users into the checkout process or to get them engaged in Luckyleo's brand. UX design played a huge part in this. I wanted the site to be easy to use while maximizing the efficiency at which it accomplished their goals as a company.
For creating Luckyleo Dancewear, I had a few key goals :
Luckyleo launched on Etsy with their own logo that Chelsea drew by hand. When it came time to redesign the logo, it was
important that it kept the old aesthetic and was recognizable by their growing customer base who were already familiar with it. We did a large website redesign in late 2016, and I took that opportunity to make some small adjustments to it.
The purpose of the
redesign was to evolve the brand and make everything more cohesive. This is when the brand really started to develop and evolve; we chose fonts, put together mood boards, and put together an updated list of competitors and brand inspiration. The result
was that Luckyleo had a refined vision and brand evolution that we have built on ever since. The results were astounding, Luckyleo did nearly 7 times the amount of sales in 2017 as they did in 2016.
Designing the brand identity for Luckyleo has possibly been my favorite project to date. The inspiration behind their brand comes from many
fashion brands, mood boards that the owners and I put together every few months, exclusive watercolor prints they create for their leotards, and nature. They do a lot of photo shoots in various outdoor locations like
Bishops Castle, Paint Mines, Vail, and studio shoots with natural lighting.
I designed Luckyleo to be a lifestyle brand, so all content is created with that in mind. Every piece is cohesive, has some floral and watercolor influences, and
features words like hand-made, custom, made-to-order, hand-painted, etc. I use a lot of pastel colors, and incorporate soft textures like marble or paper.
Responsiveness is one of the most important qualities a website can have. Over 50% of internet traffic is done from mobile devices. Not only can half of visitors be viewing a broken site if it isn't responsive, but Google search rankings are heavily impacted by it. Google announced in 2018 that they would start indexing sites mobile-first, meaning that a site is indexed based on mobile rather than desktop. I take an aggressive approach to making websites responsive, and use the google mobile friendly site check for every site I develop. This involves writing special lines of code (sometimes thousands) that control how every single element on a website is displayed for every different screen size individually.
Luckyleo's brand identity is largely rooted in who the owners are. Unlike other leotard companies, they regularly interact with their customers. Heather and Chelsea are constantly doing social media outreach, instagram live, snapchat stories, etc. Because of this, they've built a personality for Luckyleo that their customers can really relate to. This translates to brand loyalty and repeat customers. Also unlike most other leotard companies, Luckyleo is 100% hand made in the USA, and they create custom prints for their clothing using pieces of watercolor art Chelsea creates. In creating the design, I've highlighted these qualities as a major focus. Luckyleo's brand development has been tailored to represent a high-end, handmade, superior quality, one-of-a-kind lifestyle brand.
