Craig Spencer Ceramics
A ground-up website and worldwide storefront for a New Zealand ceramicist, built to feel as considered as the work it sells.
A small studio, one pair of hands.
Craig makes quiet, exact ceramics in small batches, the kind of piece you want to hold before you know why. We met on Instagram, where it was clear both studios already spoke the same language: still, unhurried, nothing louder than the work.
The work was ready to sell to the world. The old website wasn’t.
Lovely work on a site that couldn’t carry it.
The old site was self-built and bare. It sat a step below the craft, and it didn’t hold together: pages dead-ended, with no way back home short of reloading the whole thing. The shop was switched off, so people would try to buy pieces that were no longer there.
He needed a true storefront, one that could sell across New Zealand and worldwide. So we cleared the slate and started again.
Let the site feel like the work.
Quiet, exact, made by hand.
A brand system before a single page.
Decide how it should feel, then build everything to point there.
We opened with a design brief call: his references, his expectations, and what the site truly had to do. His work is clean and exact, modern and quietly commanding, so the site had to carry the same composure.
From there came the foundation: nine colors and one accent, a type hierarchy, and a small system used on every page. The palette runs from Obsidian to Chalk, a near-monochrome range built around fired clay and ash. Ember, the single warm note, appears once a page and never more. The touchstones were polished but plain spoken, Aesop and the patience of natural materials, so nothing on screen would ever compete with the pottery.
We shaped a first version, ran it through a round of critique, and settled it into one coherent look.
Built around the work.
Sculptural vessels, an everyday collection, and lamps, each given room to be seen.
An open shop, run with a single upload.
The store runs on Shopify, connected and configured end to end. To add a piece, Craig uploads a photo and writes a line about it, and it appears on the site automatically. No CMS to wrangle, no fonts to set, no layout to maintain.
Each piece is wrapped and shipped by hand from his studio in New Zealand, to anywhere in the world, with prices shown in the buyer’s own currency.
The work itself, at my door.
Craig mailed a few pieces from New Zealand. I photographed the arrival.
They arrived the way everything leaves his studio: kraft paper and black tissue, sealed in his own tape, a card of the work riding on top. Unwrapping it feels like the website does. That’s the point. I shot the pieces in the same quiet light the whole brand lives in.
He makes the work.
The site does the rest.
What I delivered.
- Design brief & directionReferences, brand feel, and what the site had to do.
- Color & type systemA palette and type hierarchy carried across every page.
- Full website designEvery page, designed from a blank canvas.
- Build & launchHand-built and deployed, fast and responsive.
- Shopify storefrontConnected and configured end to end.
- Worldwide checkoutSelling and shipping from New Zealand to anywhere.
- Information architectureA clear path through the site, no dead ends.
- Hosting & monthly careOngoing hosting plus a set block of hours each month.
A storefront worthy of the work.
One coherent home that finally looks like the studio it represents: modern, quiet, and built to sell. The dead ends are gone, the shop is open, and the whole thing holds together from the first scroll to checkout.
Craig makes the work and uploads it. The site carries the rest.
One place that finally matches the work.
The site, the shop, and the story all say the same thing.
Start a project.
If you’ve got work that deserves one coherent home, let’s talk.
Keep looking.
More from the studio. Different brands, same eye.