SOFGEL  ·  Design Explorations  ·  July 2026

Six directions for one brand.

Six independent design directions, each built out as a complete, working page — not a mockup. Every one uses SOFGEL's own product photography and links back to sofgel.com. They're deliberately different from one another: the point is to react to them, keep what feels right, and throw out the rest.

Open any of them full screen Works on phone & desktop Nothing here is final
Live · fully working
The Working Store
00 — the one that actually runs

A working storefront, with a chat assistant that answers.

Not a picture of a store — a real one. Browse the full catalog, open product pages, add to cart, walk through checkout. Then click the chat bubble in the corner and ask it anything: shade questions, tip sizing, shipping, HEMA and TPO. It answers in English, Spanish, Vietnamese or Chinese, and it knows the product line.

Full catalogCart & checkoutChat assistant · 4 languages Open the store
Direction I
Editorial
01

The Second Draft

A magazine, not a catalog. Warm paper, serif headlines, and the story told in five chapters — the invention, the collection, the ritual, the formula, the professional. Hover a product and the whole page quietly takes on its color.

EditorialStory-ledWarm
Open direction
Direction II
Atelier
02

The White Gallery

The products treated as exhibition objects — white walls, hairline rules, museum labels, one vermilion index. The coldest and most expensive-feeling of the six, and the one that reads most like an international house.

MinimalGalleryEditorial type
Open direction
Direction III
Chroma
03

Walk the Palette

The site is the swatch. Scroll through four color rooms and the entire page re-dyes itself as you enter each one, with a dock of shade dots along the bottom. The most playful of the six — and the most likely to get screenshotted and shared.

Color-ledPlayfulSocial
Open direction
Direction IV
The Lab
04

Technical Dossier

Formula as the design language: monospaced data, drafting grids, specimen crosshairs, and an ABSENT stamp landing on HEMA and TPO. Built to speak to techs and stockists who want the spec sheet before the mood board.

TechnicalPro-facingFormula-led
Open direction
Direction V
Liquid Glass
05

Liquid Glass

Apple's newest interface material, borrowed. The shade collection blurs behind frosted panes, every surface refracts, and the cursor moves across the page like a light source. The most forward-looking of the six.

GlassModernMotion
Open direction
Market Intel
Trend Radar
06 — strategy, not styling

The Tokyo Trend Radar

Field notes from the floor of BeautyWorld Japan '26. Five signals from Tokyo's professional gel market — magnetic cat-eye wardrobes, crushed-diamond shimmer, hero topcoats, numbered allocation drops, quiet-luxury packaging — each mapped against the current SOFGEL line, with a concrete product move attached.

Field intelLine mappingProduct roadmap
Open the brief

How to read these

Each direction is a full page, so scroll all the way down — most of the ideas live below the fold. They're intentionally far apart from each other, and the useful reaction is usually a mix: the layout of one, the color of another, the tone of a third. Every product photograph is SOFGEL's own, and every product link goes to sofgel.com.