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Welcome to the Blok Blok Studio blog — where we share ideas, insights, and strategies to help you grow, create, and innovate. Whether you’re looking for practical tips, industry trends, or fresh perspectives, you’ll find resources here to inspire your next move.
I was looking for shoes. Not a statement pair. Not a grail. Just a solid, good-looking everyday sneaker. Something clean, wearable, maybe even interesting if you knew where to look. I had a few tabs open. A few DTC brands I’d heard about. A couple smaller designers someone DM’d me. A resale link or two. Nothing wild.
But here’s the thing: I wasn’t just judging the shoes. I was judging the sites. Before I read a single product description or scrolled past the first row of images, I already had a feeling about the brand, the price, whether or not I trusted them. That feeling came entirely from how the site looked and felt. I didn’t think about it consciously. I just closed the ones that felt off.
It’s easy to dismiss this kind of reaction as superficial, but it’s not. It’s instinct. A website is the first handshake. If it feels stiff, clunky, or awkward, I’m gone. One brand had decent shoes, sure, but the homepage looked like it was built during a lunch break in 2016. Centered text, no hierarchy, a hero image that was slightly pixelated. Another had a great product, but everything about the layout felt crowded and confused. I didn’t feel taken care of. I didn’t feel like they’d thought about me at all.
Then there was Notion. I clicked their site and didn’t even think about bouncing. The scroll was clean. The transitions were smooth. The mood was dialed in without trying too hard. I didn’t feel sold to. I felt welcomed. Haarkon does this too. The design isn’t loud, but it speaks. There’s a rhythm. And that rhythm builds trust.
Motion matters. The sites I clicked out of weren’t necessarily ugly. They were just dead. No movement, no curiosity, no gesture that said, “We considered your experience.” One brand’s product pages felt like a government form. Another loaded so slowly I thought my Wi-Fi was broken. It reminded me how much of this is about tempo. The best sites don’t race. They glide. The movement is subtle, but it’s there. It’s the difference between walking into a space that’s curated and one that’s just clean.
And then there’s mobile. I switched to my phone halfway through the hunt because I was heading out. Most of those same brands became instantly unusable. Menus collapsed into weird symbols. Product photos didn’t resize properly. Fonts shrunk like they were embarrassed to be seen. Only a few held up. A24’s site, for example, somehow manages to feel cinematic even on mobile. Their structure adapts without shrinking the experience. Every scroll still feels like a decision. Every click still feels guided.
Typography told me more than I expected. A couple brands had genuinely interesting shoes but were using fonts that screamed "default." Others went the opposite direction. High-concept typefaces that looked cool but hurt to read. The Gentlewoman and Maison Kitsuné taught me how clean, confident type can set the tone before you ever say a word. Their fonts don’t overstate. They suggest. They offer. And the longer I stayed on their sites, the more I trusted that their product would have the same quiet quality.
It struck me that none of this was about trend. It was about care. Sites like Sonos, Patagonia, and Recess didn’t win me over with flash. They did it with functionality. Everything worked. Everything is loaded. Every product page told a clear story. It didn’t feel like they were chasing aesthetics. It felt like they were present. That someone, somewhere, was thinking about me as a real person with real attention, real doubt, and real curiosity.
And that’s the thing. A website doesn’t need to be an art piece. But it does need to be alive. Too many brands confuse minimalism with neglect. They think a blank page with a logo and two links makes them look mysterious. It doesn’t. It makes them look missing. Rimowa is a perfect counter-example. Their site evolves gently. Season to season. Campaign to campaign. But it never loses its core. It tells you they’re still here. They still care how you feel when you click.
I ended up buying the shoes from one of the brands with the best site. Not because it was flashy. Not because it had the most hype. But because the site made me feel like they’d thought about every step of the process. From product to purchase to presence. And that made all the difference.
So no, your website doesn’t need to go viral. But it does need to work. It needs to feel like someone’s still behind the curtain. Still adjusting the lights. Still thinking about what kind of impression you leave. Because if your site still reads like a dusty PDF—rigid, outdated, untouched—you’re not just behind. You’re invisible.
