Case study – UX & full-stack
Hawaii.surf
A solo project blending rich editorial content with integrated eCommerce – designed and built end to end, from concept to launch.
The challenge
Surf culture deserved better than a template
Most surf sites fall into two camps: content-heavy platforms with clunky UX, or sleek online stores that feel cold and generic. Neither serves the community well. The opportunity was to create something that treated storytelling and commerce as natural partners – not competing priorities.
My approach
Three principles shaped every decision
Content drives the experience. Articles and history come first – products follow naturally from the story.
Commerce without disruption. Products are woven into the editorial flow, not pushed in separate shop sections.
Performance as design. Fast load times aren’t a technical detail – they’re part of how people feel the site.
Building everything solo meant thinking holistically – not just about screens, but about how content, performance, commerce, and user flow all connect. I focused on smooth discovery paths: from a social media post to article to product, with no aggressive selling at any stage.
The work
Design highlights
Results
Thoughtful design supports real growth
Monthly organic visitors within year one
Bounce rate – readers stay and explore
Solo ownership of design, build & content
The balance between storytelling and soft commerce is working. Readers engage deeply with the content, and that engagement naturally carries into the store – without any hard selling.
What I learned
What building solo taught me
Owning every layer – UX, visual design, development, content strategy, and SEO – forced a kind of systems thinking you don’t get when working in a siloed role. Every decision had downstream consequences.
