Kitsch Mix Shop
Company
Kitsch Media Group
Year
2018 – 2020
Project Scope
E-commerce creation, Brand alignment, Revenue Model diversification, post-launch optimisation and growth.
An online platform that supported identity, creativity, and a community in transition.
Kitsch Mix reached a point where advertising revenue could no longer sustain the business. As a co-founder, I understood the urgency from the inside. The magazine had a strong readership and a clear sense of identity, yet the financial model was too fragile to survive long term.
We needed a new income stream that could integrate smoothly into the brand and maintain the trust we had built with LGBTQ women. The requirement was not simply to launch an e-commerce shop. The real task was to do it in a way that felt authentic to the community and simple enough for our small team to operate. Time, budget, and internal capacity shaped every decision.
The Opportunity
Although the financial pressure created the brief, the opportunity went much deeper. The shop could become a way for our audience to express identity in everyday life. I often think about brands in terms of gravity, and this project shifted where our gravity sat. The magazine created conversation, while the shop offered connection and representation through products that felt personal rather than seasonal.
There was a clear gap in the market for products that centred LGBTQ women in a meaningful way. Many stores focused only on Pride season, which left most of the year feeling forgotten. We wanted to create something more grounded. This gave the project strategic value that went well beyond commercial survival.
Design Principle
A few principles guided the work and kept us aligned.
- Design with dignity. Representation deserved sensitivity and respect, so the tone needed to feel human.
- Prioritise clarity. A small internal team meant we had to focus on features that delivered value and remove anything that created operational or cognitive burden.
- Keep the community at the centre. We checked every decision against the question, does this support the people we serve.
- Build for purpose. We wanted an experience people would return to because it felt part of their identity, not because it created a one-time spark.
Architecture
The architecture reflected the realities of running a lean organisation. I approached it with a simple systems mental model. The magazine acted as the trunk, and the shop became a new branch that needed to grow without destabilising the existing structure.
We used Shopify because it allowed us to move quickly and gave us a stable foundation for future optimisation. I worked across both the backoffice and the storefront to ensure the experience was coherent end to end. This also required a strong grasp of e-commerce operations, including inventory management, product setup, order flows, fulfilment logic, and customer service needs.
On the frontend, I shaped a clean information architecture that kept categories intuitive and reduced the cognitive load on users. On the integration side, we relied on API driven connections to ensure the shop and the magazine ecosystem communicated smoothly. This allowed the business to scale without creating operational bottlenecks.
Impact
The shop added a reliable revenue stream at a time when the magazine needed stability. It moved the organisation away from single-source income and towards a more resilient mixed model.
The community impact was just as meaningful. People told us the products helped them feel seen in their everyday lives. The experience gave them a way to express identity quietly and confidently. These small signals strengthened trust and deepened the emotional connection to the brand.
