![A laptop showing the front page of the Clemence Mountain website](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6046aa683f7163589837abed/61f2d1df9415db9a4cd06479_Macbook%20Pro.png)
Product Designer - Sketching, Mockups, Prototyping
Clemence Mountain is an upscale clothing brand that aims to deliver fashionable, high quality apparel for outdoor adventures aimed at high net worth women. This project was completed for the Harvard Business School Startup Bootcamp.
![A handwritten depiction of the words Clemence Mountain](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6046aa683f7163589837abed/61f2d43f50c0234b59b1f1f0_Asset%201%20copy.png)
Outdoor recreational clothing is often not designed for women or those who wish to shop with an eye towards style. Clemence Mountain aims to create a space for women to buy clothing that is not only functional outdoors but fashionable. Our desire with their web presence was to highlight these two worlds.
Clemence Mountain is a brand that bridges the gap for women in the outdoor recreational category between form and function. Their products allow the customer to own gear that is not only great for hiking, fishing, skiing, and more, but also great to wear around town and, more generally, out and about. In order to convey this in the design, I looked at two brands that represent either side of the bridge they are looking to build: Zara and Arcteryx.
![The Zara homepage, showing a a square photo of a model looking towards the camera with the word Sale below the image](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6046aa683f7163589837abed/61f2dd607edd7e37b41a931c_Screen%20Shot%202022-01-27%20at%2012.58.33.png)
Zara Homepage
![The Arcteryx homepage showing a mountainous landscape with a group of people hiking](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6046aa683f7163589837abed/61f2db7772ecd6e4638e64ff_Screen%20Shot%202022-01-27%20at%2012.36.33.png)
Arcteryx Home Page
![The Zara catalog page, showing three different pieces of jewelry](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6046aa683f7163589837abed/61f2dd9511ca5e6fc6e89515_Screen%20Shot%202022-01-27%20at%2012.36.08.png)
Zara Catalog Page
![The Arcteryx catalog showing some of their products, such as coats, a pair of gloves, and a winter hat](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6046aa683f7163589837abed/61f2dd96f8a493703d616631_Screen%20Shot%202022-01-27%20at%2012.51.26.png)
Arcteryx Catalog Page
For Zara's online presence, they approached it utilizing an ultra-minimalistic design utilizing a lot of negative space and minimal contextual prompts. This practice allows for an element of mystique to present itself as well as an emphasis on the fashion aspects of their brand. Further, their catalog sections emphasized that point by extremely centering the products and maximizing negative space yet again. Arcteryx, on the other hand, utilized a lot more imagery of where you might utilize their products over images of models or clothing. Their catalog pages does utilize a bit more negative space, but the emphasis remains on the technical aspects of their products and where you might use them.
Utilizing this information, I decided that Clemence mountain should take a similar minimalistic approach (albeit not to the same degree as Zara) while also highlighting the aspirational nature of their customers utlizing the gear in outdoor recreation by showcasing outdoor environments where the products could be used.
With our inspiration and ideas cemented, we began the process of designing Clemence Mountain's site through embodying the desire to be functional and fashionable.
The process of designing Clemence Mountain was an eye-opening one, and a fantastic exercise in designing for a niche audience.
I am extremely proud with how Clemence Mountain came together; this was a project that was completed extremely quickly with a team that had never met one another and was spread out across the country. In the end, we created a product that could exist beyond a simple start-up bootcamp.
Something I was reminded of while designing with this group was remembering who we are designing for. We aren't simply making pretty pictures or a basic website, we are trying to create a product that engages our potential customers and, hopefully, turns them into returning buyers. But it's easy to lose sight and simply do something because it looks cool, so don't lose sight of what you're trying to accomplish.
I do realize that it's a bit highfalutin to say that in making a website for luxury outdoor apparel it is imperative to only focus on the user rather than just a pretty picture, but damn it's true.
![A laptop showing the front page of the Clemence Mountain website](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6046aa683f7163589837abed/61f2d1df9415db9a4cd06479_Macbook%20Pro.png)
Check out the Prototype
Many thanks to the Clemence Mountain team for this opportunity to work on this project. And thanks to Emma, for giving me the chance to do this.