Permission was born on the grounds of creating an athletic fashion destination that finds power in celebrating boldness and owning who you are. As advocates of showing up as your most authentic self, sisters and co-founders Amanda and Laura have a simple goal for Permission: providing women with a physical retail experience where they have access to some of the world’s premier activewear.
Early Riser was connected with Laura and Amanda through a mutual client connection: Babe Creative. Permission was readying the initial opening of their physical storefront on Ossington Avenue in Toronto, and wanted the e-commerce store to launch simultaneously. Although they were already working with a developer, the co-founders found a gap in what they were asking for, and what was being built. Laura and Amanda had a specific idea of how they wanted the website to look: trendy, dynamic, and bold. Ultimately they wanted to work with someone who “just gets it.”
The first task for Early Riser was a discovery session with Permission to better understand their brand vision, mission, inspiration, and where the current status of their project. After a review of the work from the initial developer, Early Riser prepared a strategy, UX recommendations, and a list of identified site errors from previous development work that would be corrected. Utilizing the framework of their current premium theme, a homepage was mapped out using dynamic sections, and two custom pages were planned. Early Riser set to work incorporating the visual inspirations discussed during the discovery session, including elements from aspirational brands and the stunning architecture of the physical Permission retail store itself. The dynamic homepage built allowed for the content to be managed by Laura and Amanda themselves, to feature more of their video and image content as it corresponded with special campaigns and launches. To communicate the brand story and mission, the custom About page makes use of strong imagery, which also continues throughout the Contact page for a seamless customer experience. After correcting the identified errors, Permission’s e-commerce platform was ready for launch.
Not only did Kim take the time to fully understand our brand inside and out, but she was also able to translate our visual inspiration into the technical functionality we needed as an online retailer. It was so refreshing to have a developer so aligned with our needs and goals.
