PLEASURES
A reimagined modern version of a cyberpunk computer OS interface drawing inspiration from 90s electronic, punk, and grunge aesthetics heavily influenced by the music the founders and myself grew up listening to.
Pleasures is a streetwear brand based in Los Angeles, co-founded by Alex James and Vlad Elkin in 2015. They draw inspiration from the artists, scenes, and styles that revolved around the music they grew up listening to. Their work is consistently thoughtful, often controversial, and always imbued with a sense of fun.
Project Outline
To develop a one of a kind shop design with interactive elements the Pleasures founders could use to share their creative commentary and that customers can play with, while still prioritizing an optimal shopping experience.
The founders' and myself share a love and nostalgia for music, art, and design from the counter culture punk and rave scenes of the late '90s. My aim was to capture this nostalgia and incorporate visually. This was the era I got into computers, and at the time I was drawn to the cyberpunk aesthetic. This further inspired my design when I started exploring the idea of a vintage computer terminal OS interface. I wanted to elevate this vision into its future, of current time, by making the computer OS interface sleek and modern. Originally created in 2019 and redesigned in 2023 to grow with the brand's expanse requirements.
Creative development #
My goal was to add a compelling interactive feature for customers on landing that would also enable options for the founders and team to add their unique taste and humor, change up the vibe, highlight new collections, or announce new drops. This includes the ability to customize not only the background but also all other parts of this feature. By designing a ‘desktop’ interface feature, I added windows for which they can customize both images and text, along with buttons for links. These are interactive, users can resize and move them around for fun. The background of this ‘desktop’ interface can also be changed. With more than half of their users on mobile, it was imperative that the design was consistent on both desktop and mobile.
The product grid also has a series of custom backgrounds that the client can update the colors to match their collection. These backgrounds are usually generative animations, like this lava lamp.
Every detail was a reimagined incarnation of a modern 90's cyberpunk computer OS, like the menus, search sections and all forms.
Included an easter egg in the footer in form of a typewriter animation emulating a computer terminal from the 90s.
Development process #
Developed in Shopify Plus, with Shopify Liquid Online Store 2.0 custom theme
- Homepage desktop interface and resizable windows made with javascript using redesigned with GSAP with Draggable, original was jQuery + jQueryUI
- Footer typewriter animation made with vanilla javascript
- Theme files version control maintained via GitHub and linked to Shopify
- Custom Klaviyo newsletter sign-up built into footer
- Custom Shopify Plus checkout page
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