About the project
PUMA Moldova is the official regional distributor of the PUMA brand, offering a curated selection of footwear, apparel, and accessories. I was brought in to design and structure their first fully-featured online store — one that would maintain the global brand’s strong visual identity while being adapted for the local market.
The project required a thoughtful balance between corporate design constraints and real-world usability, with a focus on speed, simplicity, and mobile-first interactions.
The solution
Stakeholder Research
The process began with a series of stakeholder interviews — including regional marketing, sales, and logistics teams — to understand both technical limitations and customer behavior within the Moldovan market. These sessions helped identify key business priorities:
Easy access to promotions and collections
Fast checkout with minimal steps
Seamless mobile shopping experience
Brand-consistent design execution
We also studied the purchasing habits of local users and analyzed competing stores to identify bottlenecks and pain points — particularly around mobile conversion and overcomplicated forms.
Brand Consistency
Working within the global PUMA design system, I ensured that all components and visuals remained true to the brand. The official PUMA brand guidelines were followed closely in terms of:
Typography (strong, bold type with clean contrast)
Color use (particularly around red discount accents and black-and-white branding)
Visual hierarchy (emphasis on large product visuals and campaign banners)
Tone of voice
Custom modules like promotional banners, cross-category carousels, and collaborations (e.g. PUMA x FENTY, PUMA x Harry Potter) were designed to support both global and local marketing campaigns.
UX Design
I mapped out all major user flows from entry point to checkout, focusing on:
Simplified navigation between categories
Smart filtering and quick view features
Streamlined forms for sign-in, sign-up, and payment
Logical hierarchy of promotions, product discovery, and editorial content
Particular effort was made to reduce friction in checkout and product discovery journeys. Form fields were optimized to avoid redundancy and improve speed on mobile.
A layered banner system was implemented to let users navigate between collections without reloading or losing context — important for promo-heavy retail environments.
summary
This project resulted in a fast, scalable, and fully responsive e-commerce platform tailored to local customer needs while staying aligned with one of the world’s most recognizable sportswear brands.
