Karim sells cosmetics, accessories and beauty experiences from Barrancabermeja to the whole of Colombia. What it really sells is a ritual — curation with taste, a warm 'kawaii Colombian' soul and a relationship with its customers that is anything but transactional. The brand and the online store had to carry that ritual from the shelf to the checkout.
Featured projectCosmetics & self-care2024
A self-care ritual that starts with the box
The process
Every brand goes through the same five stages. This is how the story unfolded here.
Stage 01
Briefing
Beauty as identity, not as surface
The founders described Karim as a family project where every purchase includes packaging, attention and a personal detail. The brief was to translate that closeness into an identity that could stand on a shelf next to luxury minimalism and mass-market brands, and then into a store that felt like the boutique itself.
Stage 02
Research
Listening to the women who already loved the brand
I looked at how Karim's customers talk about self-care, what they photograph when a package arrives and where generic beauty e-commerce loses warmth. The pattern was clear: the emotional peak is the unboxing, and the store had to be designed backwards from that moment.
Stage 03
Branding
Soft pastels, tropical accents and a hand-drawn warmth
The identity is anchored in warmth, femininity and Colombian character: soft pastels with bold tropical accents, custom typography with hand-drawn warmth and a logo that works from a lipstick cap to a storefront. Packaging was designed as a gifting experience — box, insert and label build the 'unboxing ritual'.
Stage 04
UX/UI
A boutique you can browse from your phone
The store experience keeps the boutique's personality while handling real e-commerce work: product variants, category navigation, national shipping and a mobile checkout that stays out of the way. Layouts use fluid clamp() scaling and the Urbanist + Playfair Display pairing so the brand voice survives every screen size.
Stage 05
Development
Custom Liquid components on a Shopify theme
Built on the Tinker 4.1.1 theme, I developed a library of custom Liquid components: theme blocks with their own schemas, an inline SVG icon system and JSON templates for block-based page composition. The team can rearrange pages, promotions and seasonal campaigns without touching code — and without breaking the brand.
Where it landed
Karim launched with a cohesive identity across packaging, social media and retail, and an online store that became its main digital sales channel. The unboxing experience turned into a differentiator customers share organically, and the block-based Shopify build lets the team launch seasonal campaigns and new product lines without losing the brand.
Gallery
03/05
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Where the image and the soul meet — and the site proves it
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