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Sensista Studio

For Sensista Studio, a brand focused on at-home gel manicures, I enhanced their existing Shopify theme instead of rebuilding it. I added new marketing-focused sections as Shopify theme extensions — including a seasonal “Zomercollectie”, tips & tricks, blog highlights and #Sensista UGC — and then refined the experience with targeted CSS for typography, spacing and buttons. This made the homepage feel more curated and conversion-oriented, while keeping it easy for the team to manage campaigns and collections directly in the Shopify editor.

Role
Shopify Developer
Location
Endeavour
Year
Website
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Sensista Studio — Shopify Theme Customization

Sensista Studio is a beauty brand focused on at-home gel manicures, with a product range spanning starter sets, color gels and nail care. Their Shopify storefront was already running on an existing theme, but they wanted a more curated, conversion-focused experience without commissioning a full custom build.

Role & Objectives

As a Frontend / Shopify Developer, my role was to:

  • Work on top of an existing Shopify theme instead of rebuilding from scratch.
  • Add new, marketing-focused sections using Shopify theme extensions.
  • Refine the visual design and interactions with custom CSS while staying on-brand.
  • Keep everything easy to manage for the team via the Shopify editor.

Approach

I started from the live theme and treated it as a base layer. From there, I extended the theme with new sections built as Shopify theme extensions, and used targeted CSS overrides to tighten up spacing, typography, and component styling.

The goal was to make key flows — such as discovering seasonal collections, browsing gellak tips, and navigating bundles — feel more deliberate and more “Sensista”, without breaking the update path of the original theme.

CSS refinements:

  • Adjusted typography hierarchy on headings, product cards and blog teasers for better scanability.
  • Tweaked spacing, paddings and alignment in carousels, promo strips and footers to create a more cohesive, breathing layout.
  • Polished button and link styles (hover, active states, border-radius, contrast) for consistency across “Snel toevoegen” buttons, CTAs and navigation.
  • Fine-tuned responsive behavior so that collections, bundle promotions and content sections remain easy to browse on mobile, where most traffic for this type of brand typically comes from.

Technical Notes

  • All new content blocks were built as Shopify theme extensions, meaning the Sensista team can enable, reorder and configure sections directly from the theme customizer.
  • Custom CSS was scoped to avoid leaking into default theme components and to preserve compatibility with future theme updates.
  • I worked with the existing design language and product photography rather than introducing a completely new style, focusing on clarity and UX improvements.

Outcome

The updated Sensista storefront keeps the original Shopify theme under the hood but feels more curated, seasonal and content-rich. New visitors quickly understand the value proposition (“de perfecte gelmanicure voor thuis”) and can either jump straight into starter sets or explore collections, tips and inspiration.

For Sensista, this approach delivers a more conversion-oriented and on-brand experience while remaining maintainable: the team can manage content and campaigns in the Shopify editor, and the underlying theme stays updatable without a full rebuild.