A carefully structured digital experience translating an artist’s vision into intuitive navigation, considered visual design and a custom-built WordPress system.
A digital experience designed around the way La Mala Línea wanted people to discover and connect with its work.
Instead of a conventional e-commerce experience, the website was structured to showcase paintings and illustrations, organize them through collections, promote commissions and collaborations, and turn interest in a specific piece into a direct conversation with the artist.
The project combined information architecture, visual direction, interaction design, and custom development to create a system that feels simple to use while remaining flexible and scalable underneath.
Product Designer · UX/UI · Frontend Development
The main challenge was translating the artist’s vision and business needs into a clear, intuitive digital experience that could showcase the work while encouraging direct contact.
The main objectives were to:
The main constraint was intentional: the website was not designed as a conventional eCommerce platform. Rather than leading users towards an online purchase, the experience needed to encourage them to contact the artist directly and discuss the work personally.
To define the experience, I analysed how contemporary artists, creative studios and curated art platforms present their work online.
The objective was not to replicate existing patterns, but to identify useful conventions around:
This helped establish a balance between visual expression, familiarity and usability.
01 — The artwork should lead the experience
The interface needed to create enough structure to help users explore the work without competing with it visually.
02 — Interest should lead to conversation
The absence of conventional eCommerce was intentional. The website needed to turn interest in a specific artwork into a contextual enquiry, giving the artist the opportunity to discuss the piece, format, availability and price directly with the potential client.
03 — Content needed to remain flexible
The artist should be able to continuously curate what appears across the website — from featured artworks on the Home to collections and related pieces — without changing the underlying structure.
These insights translated into a content system built around:
Home
→ Concept · Featured work · Collections · Services · Collaborations
About
→ Artist · Studio · Philosophy
Paintings / Illustrations
→ Collections · Artwork discovery
Artwork
→ Technical information · Enquiry · Related work
Commissions
→ Process · Requirements · Contact
Contact
→ Direct communication
The result was a structure where content, discovery and enquiry are connected rather than treated as separate sections.
Challenge The project introduced several structural and experience challenges:
Solution The experience was designed as a connected, curated system:
The individual artwork page was designed as more than a product detail page.
It brings together:
Artwork → Technical information → Collection → Enquiry → Related work
The visual presentation gives the piece enough space to remain the protagonist, while the accompanying information provides the context needed to understand the work.
The related-work section then creates a natural continuation of the browsing experience rather than leaving the user at the end of a single page.
Because the artwork is the core of the experience, navigation needed to remain simple, visible and contextual.
Collection navigation was integrated directly into the artwork archives, allowing users to move between different collections without having to repeatedly return to a higher-level page.
Related artworks and curated selections provide additional paths through the catalogue, encouraging exploration without introducing a complex filtering system.
The navigation therefore works at two levels:
Global navigation → move between the main areas of the studio
Contextual navigation → explore collections and related artwork
The enquiry flow was designed around the artist’s decision not to use conventional eCommerce.
Instead of:
Artwork → Add to cart → Checkout
the experience becomes:
Artwork → Interest → Enquiry → Direct conversation
The CTA on an individual artwork opens a contextual form, already associated with the piece the user was viewing.
The submitted information is sent to the artist together with the artwork title, collection and relevant details, giving the artist enough context to continue the conversation directly.
The experience was designed to remain curated rather than static, allowing the artist to decide which pieces should gain more visibility across different parts of the website.
Artwork is not limited to a single archive. Individual pieces can become part of collections, appear as featured work on the Home, be selected as artist favourites, or be suggested as related work within individual artwork pages.
This creates multiple paths for discovery while keeping the experience intentionally curated.
Artwork → Collections → Featured Work → Related Work → Discovery
Rather than relying on automated recommendations, the system gives the artist control over what is promoted, allowing the website to evolve alongside new work, availability, exhibitions, sales, or changing creative priorities.
This turns the website into an active extension of the studio rather than a static catalogue.
A curated introduction to the studio
The homepage progressively introduces La Mala Línea through its concept, artwork, collections, services and collaborations, creating a visual narrative that guides users through the studio and its work.
A visual catalogue built for exploration
The paintings and illustrations archives make a growing body of work easy to browse while maintaining a consistent visual language across both types of content.
Making collections immediately accessible
Collection navigation allows users to move between different bodies of work without losing context, creating a simple and intuitive way to explore the catalogue.
Giving each piece space and context
Individual artwork pages balance the visual presence of each piece with the information needed to understand it, enquire about it and continue exploring related work.
Turning interest into a direct conversation
The enquiry experience connects a user’s interest in a specific artwork with a direct conversation with the artist, keeping the artwork as the context throughout the interaction.
Extending the experience beyond the artwork
The same visual language extends across the artist profile, commissions and contact experience, creating a coherent studio identity beyond the artwork catalogue.
Designing a consistent experience across screen sizes
The responsive system was designed to preserve the visual identity, hierarchy and usability of La Mala Línea across desktop, tablet and mobile, adapting layouts and interactions rather than simply scaling them down.
A lightweight foundation built from scratch
The website was developed as a custom WordPress theme rather than assembled from pre-built templates or a heavy plugin stack. This provided full control over the structure, visual implementation and interaction layer.
Reusable structures for different content experiences
The theme separates page templates, single views and reusable template parts, allowing each section of the website to have its own structure while maintaining a consistent underlying architecture.
A content structure designed around the artwork catalogue
Custom post types and taxonomies were created to reflect the actual structure of the studio: paintings, illustrations and their different collections. This allows each type of work to be managed independently while maintaining relationships across the catalogue.
Purpose-built interactions without unnecessary dependencies
Interactive behaviour was developed with custom JavaScript and integrated directly into the theme. This approach provides precise control over navigation, filtering, responsive interactions and enquiry flows without relying on third-party interaction plugins.
Reducing visual weight without compromising image quality
More than 300 image assets were processed and converted to WebP, reducing unnecessary file weight while preserving the visual quality required for an artwork-focused website.
Image optimisation was considered as part of the implementation rather than as a final step.
A carefully built system across desktop and mobile
The responsive implementation adapts layouts, navigation, artwork grids and enquiry interactions to different screen sizes while preserving the visual hierarchy and usability of the experience.
The result is a lightweight custom build with only the necessary plugin dependencies and full control over the frontend behaviour.
Outcome Learnings 
A portfolio designed to communicate complex projects through structured storytelling and scalable architecture.
A modular intranet system that centralizes operational workflows and internal collaboration, improving efficiency, clarity, and access to critical information.
An eCommerce platform designed to structure and navigate a highly fragmented product ecosystem, combining bicycles, equipment, and services within a…