Andrew Kotov

vynil store

e-commerce

What i did

Designed store scenarios & architecture

Brainstormed interactive graphics

Built design concept from scratch

Led discovery interviews

Collaborated with dev team

Hired team members to speed delivery

Created Rive animations

Task

I needed to develop a design concept for an online vinyl record store for the Ritm shop. It was a test assignment for the studio, but it became something more than just a test.

Intro

I received the initial brief in the form of store photos, basic audience insights, rough references, and some technical constraints.

Procces*

Discovery

My Role

I explored not only e-commerce but also other adjacent fields, factoring in the specifics of the agency I was applying to.

Task

I reviewed 40+ e-commerce references to understand strong visual and UX solutions.

Intro

I interviewed 3 people: a DJ, a vinyl store owner, and a beginner collector. These are some of the questions I asked, I summarized the insights into Job Stories. This helped me outline behavioral patterns:

New collectors → explore by genre, cover art, movie references
DJs → search by label/artist, save/share links, need precise filters

Intro

New collectors → explore by genre, cover art, movie references
DJs → search by label/artist, save/share links, need precise filters

From this I prioritized user needs → smart search, genre navigation, label filters, clear product cards — and moved to concepting.

Th, 20 March, 2025

Redesign · boring LMS to Educational Netflix

Th, 20 March, 2025

Redesign · boring LMS to Educational Netflix

Th, 10 August, 2024

Mobile App for premium concierge service of Russia's top-2 banks

Th, 10 August, 2024

Mobile App for premium concierge service of Russia's top-2 banks

concept

Finding Potential Directions

The structure and IA came from early benchmarks.
At this stage, I explored a lot of metaphors and visual cues — it was messy but productive.

The final design concept emerged from the store's original logo. I found a quote from the logo’s author describing the style as a contrast of heaviness and freedom — I used this duality as a core metaphor.

Delivery

Next steps

After presenting the concept, the studio approved it — they even purchased the test task and invited me back part-time. We pulled in more details from the physical store and did some redesign in concept

The client had a vertical logo — that shaped the whole layout and resulted in a unique phygital-to-digital experience.

We also worked under the hood:

Rebuilt the data structure for vinyl categorization — the client later implemented it in their admin.
The entire checkout experience + referral system + smooth login logic in it

I also brought in Danil Matlakov to speed up design for the homepage — he knew the vinyl scene deeply. Together, we finalized interactive WebGL banners, designed the user profile, built out static pages and templates