Case study · Ecommerce
A Victorian-era archive for the modern pet, where every commission gets a past life instead of a filtered photo.
(The Brief)
Pawtrait Society came to us with a simple problem: every pet portrait site looks the same. They wanted something that felt like a proper archive rather than another novelty filter, with a concept strong enough to justify a premium price and a brand built to match it.
The pet portrait market is crowded, and most of it looks disposable. Competitors lean on gimmicky filters and templates that don't hold up past the first purchase. Pawtrait Society needed to sit apart from all of that: museum grade, collectible, something worth commissioning rather than just generating.
We built the entire brand around one idea: every pet has a secret past life. Twelve curated characters, from The Duelist to The Dowager, turn a simple photo into a proper commission. We handled the concept, the visual identity and the ecommerce platform that ties it all together.
(The Work)
We developed the Registry concept from the ground up, including the tone of voice and all twelve character archetypes that give the brand its identity.
A custom store built around commissions rather than off-the-shelf products, with an upload flow designed to feel considered rather than automated.
An automated pipeline routes every commission from upload through to delivery, so the front end stays simple while the backend does the heavy lifting.
(The Registry)
The Poet
The Explorer
The Anarchist
The Inventor
The Collector
The Dowager
The Duelist
The Exile
The Medium
The Naturalist
The Salonnière
The Last of the Line
(Gift Cards)
We built a separate gifting flow alongside the core commission journey, so a gift card behaves like its own product: its own checkout path, its own balance system, its own moment of unwrapping.
That meant variable-value product logic built from scratch rather than bolted on, a balance-lookup tool customers can check without emailing support, and automated delivery that ties straight back into the same fulfilment pipeline running every other commission. Nothing about it sits as a separate plugin bodged onto the store; it's wired into the same system end to end.
(Social Content)
(Visual Identity)
Pawtrait Society needed to feel handwritten by a Victorian archivist rather than generated by a machine. Every typeface and colour had to earn its place in that world, so we kept the palette small and let the portraits do the talking.
Typography
Playfair Display — Headings
Aa123
DM Sans — Body & UI
Aa123
Colour Palette
#101516
#C9A66B
#EDE6D6
#6B6459
(Project Facts)
Client
Pawtrait Society
Sector
Pet Products · Luxury Retail
Services
Web Design · E-commerce · Branding · Automation · Hosting
Platform
WordPress · WooCommerce
Timeline
6 weeks, contact to launch
Live Site
(Next Steps)
From a single idea — a pet's secret past life — we built the identity, the store and the content engine that sells it. Yours could be just as distinctive.
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