Squarespace Jewelry Store Website Design: Mai Lani Designs
Sometimes you don't need a new website. You need your existing website to work and look better.
Mai Lani Designs already had a functioning Squarespace website and online store when founder and designer Lani came to Designing the Row. The foundation was there, but she wanted help elevating the design, better communicating the meaning behind her jewelry, and creating a more intentional shopping experience for her customers.
Rather than starting over, we completed a Squarespace Website Refresh—working within her existing website to transform the visual design, reorganize content, and create a stronger connection between Lani's story, her products, and the experience of shopping the brand.
Before & After: Refreshing an Existing Squarespace Website
A website refresh can make a surprisingly big difference without rebuilding everything from scratch.
Mai Lani Designs already had many of the pieces we needed: beautiful photography, an established product catalog, thoughtful messaging, and a strong story behind the brand.
The opportunity was in how those pieces were being presented.
The original homepage introduced the brand and its collections, but the refreshed design creates a stronger visual hierarchy and gives visitors a clearer journey through the site. Instead of simply presenting categories and information, the new homepage moves intentionally from brand introduction to values, collections, the designer's story, bestselling products, and the deeper meaning behind each piece.
The content evolved, but so did the way that content was designed.
Typography, spacing, imagery, backgrounds, graphic details, and section layouts all work together to make the same Squarespace website feel like a much more elevated representation of the brand.
Creating a Stronger Shopping Experience
For an e-commerce website, beautiful design is only part of the job.
Visitors also need to understand what you sell, find what interests them, and move naturally from browsing to shopping.
One of the biggest changes to the Mai Lani Designs homepage was how the jewelry collections are presented. Rather than grouping several broad offerings together, the refreshed site introduces distinct jewelry collections with individual imagery and direct paths to shop each one.
Pearls, gemstones, purposeful pieces, leather designs, island-inspired jewelry, and modern minimalist pieces can each be discovered directly from the homepage.
A dedicated Bestsellers section also introduces individual products earlier in the shopping journey, giving visitors another way to begin exploring without first navigating through an entire collection.
The goal was to make the homepage feel editorial and beautiful without sacrificing the functionality of an online store.
Bringing the Brand Story Forward
Mai Lani Designs isn't simply about jewelry.
Lani's work is rooted in the belief that everything is energy and that adornment can be more than decoration. Her pieces are designed as meaningful reminders to live intentionally, reconnect with yourself, and make conscious choices about how you move through the world.
That philosophy needed a much stronger presence within the website.
The refreshed homepage introduces the ideas behind the brand early through four core themes: Inspired by Nature, Made by Hand, Meaningful Design, and Authentic Materials.
Later, visitors are introduced directly to Lani and the story behind her work.
This creates an important shift in the shopping experience. You're not simply looking at a bracelet or necklace—you understand that each piece begins with an intention and is handmade by a real person with a philosophy behind what she creates.
For a small product-based business, that story can be one of the biggest differentiators from mass-produced alternatives.
Introducing the Designer
Another important addition to the homepage was creating a stronger connection between the products and the person making them.
Lani has more than 25 years of experience teaching hula, an art rooted in storytelling, connection, and honoring energy. Today, she channels that same intention into every piece she creates.
The refreshed homepage brings that story forward with a dedicated introduction to the designer and a clear path to learn more.
Her story adds context to everything else visitors encounter throughout the site: the natural materials, Hawaiian influences, meaningful symbolism, and even the name Mai Lani itself.
In Hawaiian, mailani means "to praise" or "to treat as a chief or great favorite," while mai lani, written as two words, means "from heaven." For Lani, the kaona, or deeper meaning, behind the name expresses something even more personal: from my heart to yours.
Designing Around Strong Brand Photography
Product photography has enormous influence over how an e-commerce website feels.
Mai Lani Designs had beautiful imagery filled with warm natural light, organic textures, tropical elements, stones, crystals, and thoughtfully styled jewelry. The refresh gave those assets more room to shape the website itself.
Instead of treating photography as something simply placed inside a page layout, imagery became part of the visual system.
Large lifestyle photographs create immersive moments throughout the homepage, while clean product imagery makes collection and product sections easy to browse. Warm neutrals and earthy accent colors complement the photography rather than competing with it.
It's a great example of something I tell clients often: the quality of your website design is directly affected by the quality of the assets we have to design with.
Strong photography doesn't just make a website prettier. It gives us the tools to create a more cohesive, distinctive, and professional brand experience.
Balancing E-Commerce and Storytelling
One of the challenges with a handmade product website is finding the right balance between telling the story and selling the product.
Too much storytelling, and visitors may never reach the shop.
Too much product, and the brand can begin to feel like any other online store.
The refreshed Mai Lani Designs homepage intentionally alternates between the two.
Visitors encounter collections and products, then learn more about Lani. They see bestselling pieces, then encounter the philosophy behind them. Lifestyle photography and brand messaging provide moments of connection between opportunities to shop.
That rhythm allows the website to communicate both what Mai Lani Designs sells and why it exists.
Mobile E-Commerce Design
A product-based website needs to be just as easy to shop from a phone as it is from a desktop.
The refreshed design was built responsively so visitors can browse collections, discover individual products, learn about Lani, and move into the online store across screen sizes.
Particular attention was given to preserving the visual hierarchy of the desktop experience while keeping product imagery, text, and calls to action clear and accessible on smaller screens.
Built on Squarespace
As a Squarespace Authorized Trainer, Squarespace Expert, and Squarespace Circle Member, one of the things I love about Squarespace is that an existing website doesn't always need to be rebuilt to become significantly better.
That's exactly what made a Squarespace Website Refresh the right fit for Mai Lani Designs.
We were able to work with the website and online store she already had—preserving the underlying foundation while improving the design, content organization, brand storytelling, and shopping experience.
For business owners who have simply outgrown the DIY version of their site, a strategic refresh can often create the transformation they're looking for without starting again from zero.
Website Features Included
Squarespace Website Refresh https://www.designingtherow.com/refresh
Jewelry e-commerce website design (Squarespace E-Commerce)
Homepage redesign
Mobile-responsive design
Product collection organization
Bestselling product showcase
Founder and brand storytelling
Custom Squarespace styling
Newsletter signup
Social media integration
Search engine optimization (SEO) foundations
Does Your Squarespace Website Need a Refresh?
Maybe your website isn't broken. It just doesn't feel like your business anymore.
Your products have evolved. Your photography is better. Your branding is more refined. You understand your customer more clearly, but the website you built a few years ago hasn't caught up.
A Squarespace Website Refresh is designed for exactly that situation.
Instead of rebuilding your website from scratch, I work within your existing Squarespace site to elevate the design, improve the user experience, reorganize content, and create an online presence that better reflects where your business is today. If you're ready for a custom Squarespace website that tells your story and gives visitors a place to truly connect with your work, we’d love to help.
About the Designer
Hi, I'm Katherine Forbes, founder of Designing the Row. I'm a Squarespace Authorized Trainer, Squarespace Expert, and Squarespace Circle Member who has designed more than 300 custom Squarespace websites for musicians, authors, nonprofits, speakers, product-based businesses, and other small businesses.
Mai Lani Designs already had a functioning Squarespace website and online store when founder and designer Lani came to Designing the Row. The foundation was there, but she wanted help elevating the design, better communicating the meaning behind her jewelry, and creating a more intentional shopping experience for her customers.