Personal Project
Aste Ethical Online Store
About
My Role: UX / UI Designer
Year: 2022
Tools: Adobe Illustrator
The Problem:
Clothing is being disposed of in landfills at an alarming rate, largely due to the rapid turnover encouraged by the fast fashion industry. This constant cycle of purchasing and discarding is unsustainable. Adding to the problem, being a conscious consumer is challenging. Factors such as cost, convenience, and the perceived lack of style in sustainable options act as significant barriers impacting the widespread adoption of slow fashion practices. How might we develop a retail experience that tackles the fast fashion crisis and appeals to consumers?
The Solution:
An online retail experience that puts transparency and accessibility first and appeals to fast fashion consumers through style and branding.
02. Research
Users & Competitors. Through desktop research, I began to frame the problem in terms of statistics, and then in relation to consumers as it was an essential part of the fast fashion ecosystem that needed exploring further.
03. Solution Mapping
My research revealed many factors [range, cost, convenience and trendiness] leading to consumers [primarily Gen Z and Millennials] adopting fast fashion shopping practices which I used as the basis for developing a set of user personas.
The Concept. The solution, Aste, meaning slow in Bengali is an ethical fashion retailer that puts transparency at its core by openly and honestly connecting the origin of its clothing to its consumers.
04. The Aste Ecosystem
The Aste Ecosystem. Using the information gathered, a new ecosystem map was developed to outline how Aste could use its business model to meet the needs of its consumers and fulfil its ethical responsibility. This ecosystem map was used as the basis for developing the Aste e-retail prototypes seen below.
05. Aste Wesbite Design
The purpose of this mapping task was to begin forming an overview of what makes the issue of fast fashion so complicated and what issues would need to be addressed in the solution.
I developed a solution with the primary function of online retail, featuring select brands that met the criteria of cost, style and ethics so that information and purchasing power could all be in one place. This would be supplemented by a brick-and-mortar concept store that highlighted Aste’s values and developed hype and interest amongst Gen Z and Millennial consumers through its social media friendly design.
The main requirements for the e-retail website were easy accessibility and full transparency of information, simple and intuitive navigation, cyclical returning options and the availability of varying price points. The design of the website also had to be familiar and maintain the vibrancy of fast fashion sites such as Shein and ASOS to increase approachability without diluting the slow fashion message.
01. Background
Fast Fashion Ecosystem Map. The design process for this project began with tracing the ‘problem areas’ and their overall impact in the fast fashion ecosystem.
