JHB

Website design and development · Furniture

Every sofa named after a stone

A South African maker of bespoke furniture and interiors, selling a made-to-order range online.

Client
YellowStone Design
Year
2018
Scope
Brand identity, Web design, E-commerce build
The YellowStone Design lockup on a pale wall in window light: the YSD monogram in its circle beside the wordmark, with the line Bespoke Furniture and Interiors beneath.
The lockup.

(Overview)The range runs to sixty-six products, and forty-five of them are named after stones. Every sofa, without exception.

(The brief)Nothing YellowStone makes has one finish. Every piece is built to order, so the range had to carry its fabrics and its dimensions on the page rather than in a phone call, and all of it had to be photographed and specified before the shop could open.

Colour

Type

Aa set in Zahra.Zahra Primary
TODO: Aa set in the secondary face.TODO Secondary face Secondary

A high-contrast serif for the name, and nothing else competing with the stones.

The YSD monogram in black on white: the letters Y, S and D drawn as one high-contrast serif cluster inside a fine double circle.
The YSD monogram
Four of the range
The YellowStone shop page: six sofas photographed on white in a three-across grid, each with View Product and Quick View buttons in yellow and a price beneath.
The shop grid
Two swing tags on pale marble: a black one face up carrying the embossed YSD monogram and the wordmark, and a white one face down carrying the price and the contact details.
The swing tag, both sides

(The system)One monogram, two lockups, and a swing tag that has to survive being tied to a sofa.

(What shipped)The identity and its applications, and a shop with card payments behind it. Chairs, sofas, ottomans, beds and tables, each with its own fabric options, plus the blog, the FAQs and the project pages.

A desktop display on a timber consultation table in a furniture showroom, showing the Black Diamond Sofa page. Grey buttoned sofas and armchairs stand on a polished concrete floor behind it, with tall windows along the far wall.
The product page, in the showroom.

(Two jobs)One site had to do two jobs. Sell a single chair to a stranger, and show a hotel commission to a developer.

(The navigation)So the shop and the projects sit side by side in the navigation rather than one behind the other. Someone buying an ottoman never passes through the case studies, and someone looking for a fit-out never has to browse the sale.

Website and shop

Home. A sofa on the hero, priced and buyable.
The Shop. Every piece, by category.
Three-seaters. Filtered by price.
Black Diamond Sofa. Fabrics, dimensions, add to basket.
Checkout. Billing details and order summary.
About us. The YSD Group, behind the monogram.
Projects. Interiors delivered, hotel and residential.
The Blog. Trend writing, searchable by subject.
Article. How to apply the velvet trend to your space.
Contact us. Enquiries, showroom, trade accounts.
01 / 10
A squared stack of matte black business cards on pale marble, the monogram and wordmark embossed on the top card, with one card turned over beside it showing the contact details in black on white.
Cards stacked
A laptop open on an oak table in a pale living room, showing the Projects page: a wide photograph of a covered hotel terrace with the word Projects across it, and a row of project thumbnails beneath.
The site, on a laptop
A phone lying face up on pale marble beside a folded square of grey cloth, showing the shop listing: sofas photographed on white, each above a yellow View Product button, a black Quick View button, a name and a price.
The site, on a phone
A black swing tag on a cotton string hanging against deep grey buttoned velvet, the YSD monogram embossed on it above the wordmark.
The swing tag, on the sofa

(The choice)A sofa is a shape and a cloth. Nobody commits to one without seeing the other.

(Room and swatch)Every piece is shot in a room. Every fabric is shot on its own. The room gives the proportions and the swatch gives the colour, and a customer choosing Onyx is looking at both before they order.

A room set built on a studio floor: two plaster walls and a section of oak flooring laid over bare concrete, an ochre buttoned sofa on a rug between them, lit by softboxes on stands with a camera on a tripod facing it.
The room, built for the shoot.
A copy table in a studio: a square of ochre velvet taped onto white paper under a camera on an overhead arm, raked by a softbox from the left, with a fanned row of grey, olive and ink blue swatches waiting in shadow beside it.
The fabrics each one comes in.

Name the company after a stone and the range names itself. Agate, Onyx, Peridot, Tanzanite.

More work

View all work
The Officine Italia mark: a Venetian gondola and gondolier in black silhouette above the wordmark.
Experiences Three ways into Italy, from Johannesburg
An architect's office at dusk with the Veld Architects site open on a laptop.
Practice Twenty years of houses, philosophy second
A sheet of CT slices held against a clinical interior, the IntriHEALTH mark over it.
Platform Africa's largest clinical image archive
The ANS mark: layered orange and red chevrons beside the Australian Niugini Services wordmark.
Trade A mark for the Australia⁠–⁠PNG corridor
A nurse checking a small child in a consulting room.
Product One immunisation record, three readers
The Ogese Group wordmark in gold, centred over Africa on a dark world map traced with city lights.
Group One parent mark, three businesses
The South China Clothing mark as a white neon blade sign over a wet Hong Kong street at night.
Identity One corporate clothing spec, four cities
The Social Link heart mark: clustered dots in many colours forming a heart.
Portal Carers placed, one shift at a time
A grey whippet on a buttoned grey velvet chesterfield, the DM&A lockup and Interior Architectural Design set large above it.
Book Private homes, luxury hotel interiors
A scuffed white Oiltech hard hat hanging on a steel column, the workshop running away behind it.
Identity An identity for forty years of hydraulics
A single Urban Barista No. 22 bag in teal and ochre, the Pretoria skyline along the bottom.
Packaging Three roasts you order by number
A woman in a pale blue coat walking the full length of the Fine Living storefront, the carrier bag at her side and the shop sign above.
Storefront A 600m² showroom, on every surface

Most of these are still in use.

Contact

David Muirhead & Associates. Book and website, 2014.

A dark panelled interior design studio at night, lit by a brass picture light and the screen. The David Muirhead site is open on a large display on a burl walnut desk, with a fan of fabric swatches, stone samples and a rolled drawing laid out beside it and boucle chairs pulled up.