About Illure Design
Three friends. One mission: build e-commerce experiences that are anything but ordinary.
We're a boutique web agency based in Edmonton, Alberta—founded by people who are extremely psyched about building websites. We create uniquely fabulous bespoke e-commerce sites for brands that want to stand out and play by their own rules.
Our goal is to build award-winning, inspiring websites with bold and creative designs. Those are our people—and we'd love to build something extraordinary with you.
About Illure Design
Three friends. One mission: build e-commerce experiences that are anything but ordinary.
Our story
It starts, like many businesses, with a friend reaching out with a need.
The friend who would become Illure's first client was a powerhouse Etsy seller, running a successful business for her handmade goods. She reached out to Jennifer Johnston, a friend that she knew was a talented web developer, frustrated with the high fees she was paying to Etsy just to sell on a store that she could barely customize or control. She wanted something all her own, built just for her, that she could have complete control over.
Jennifer agreed to take on the project, and started building.
Our Technology
As Jennifer researched all the most up to date standards and best technology and practices for e-commerce, the basic architecture of this custom site started to come together:
- A headless CMS (content management system), meaning that all the data (product information, images, etc) for a store could easily be managed by the seller, but the front end (what the customer sees) is completely, endlessly customizable.
- Jamstack, a modern web architecture that prioritizes performance, security, and scalability, meaning websites load fast and handle high traffic loads well, while protecting customer and seller data.
- Done-for-you integrations with payment processors and shipper services that help every piece of a seller's workflow fit together seamlessly.
- Incredible 3D experiences built into the website's front end, using WebGL to deliver the kinds of enchanting shopping experiences used by brands such as Nike and Chanel.
Our Team
Excited about what she was building, Jennifer told her friends, and it turned out they were excited too. Justine Matsala and Emily MacKenzie joined the team to help Jennifer get her ambitious project over the finish line and deliver web projects for more clients along the way.
Jennifer JohnstonChief Operations Officer
Jen, the founder of Illure Design, is a powerhouse developer like no other, driven by a passion for excellence in everything she builds and a boundless creativity. She brings over 5 years of experience managing content development projects independently using both legacy platforms and more modern systems. Through this, she has gained a deep understanding of JAMStack development flows and API integration that helps in creating customizable and dynamic websites.
Justine MatsalaChief Technology Officer
Justine needs to give me a bio for herself
Emily MacKenzieChief Creative Officer
Emily brings to the team 18 years of experience in design and digital marketing, with a focus on online retail and conversion optimization. Having worked with everyone from major national retailers to solo entrepreneurs launching their brands for the first time, she brings a passion for driving smart growth for every kind of business.
Our Vision
Our goal is to build award-winning, inspiring websites with bold and creative designs. We embrace 3D modelling, highly custom visual branding, and innovative new ideas in web design to make our clients stand out from the pack.
Some brands are happy enough having a website that looks like everyone else's, but we love the brands who think outside the box. The people selling products that are one-of-a-kind, quirky, creative, and like nothing you've seen before, are the people who will never be satisfied with a boring website.
Those are our people.
Our Future
The "headless" architecture of our e-commerce app allows us to leverage our established back-end and customize it for any business's unique needs, then build a completely different and customized front end to give each client a beautiful site that's all their own.
While we continue to serve customers now by creating fully custom sites and useful Shopify plug-ins for users still on that platform, we are building the next phase of our app: a multi-vendor e-commerce app that will allow users to build their own shop on our platform, without needing custom development.
Ready to build something extraordinary?
Let's talk about your project.