Forge & Smith
A maker of bespoke steel-and-timber furniture needed a digital showroom worthy of their craft — and a store that could sell $8,000 pieces online.
Client
Forge & Smith
Sector
Custom Furniture
Year
2026
Services
Web · E-commerce · Photography Direction
The Brief
Forge & Smith were making extraordinary furniture — tables, shelving, and beds built to last a century — but selling almost entirely through word of mouth and two trade shows per year. Their Instagram had a following but no direct revenue channel. They needed an e-commerce experience that could communicate the weight and permanence of their pieces, and justify the price point to customers who'd never touched the product.
The Approach
High-value physical products live or die on photography. We led with photography direction — defining the shot list, surface treatment, and lighting approach before a single line of code was written. The store was built around those images: oversized, unhurried, designed to let customers sit with each piece. The purchase flow was simplified to three steps, with material selectors and dimension configurators built in-house.
Photography Direction
Before any design work began, we defined the visual language for the photography. Dark, textured backgrounds that let the material quality of each piece speak. Dramatic side-lighting that reveals texture and weld detail. Lifestyle shots that show the furniture at human scale, in context.
The result is a consistent visual system that works across the website, social, and print.
The Store
Forge & Smith’s products aren’t impulse purchases. They’re considered decisions. The store reflects this — slow, editorial, designed to support research rather than rush it.
Each product page includes: multiple material and finish options, lead times, a detailed process section, and a custom enquiry flow for bespoke commissions.
The Configurator
For their signature dining table, we built a custom configurator: customers choose timber species, steel finish, and dimensions — and see a live product render update as they select. This single feature reduced pre-sale enquiries by 60%.
Results
$64,000
Online revenue (month 1)
$4,200
Avg. order value
2.8%
Conversion rate
-38%
Cart abandonment
"I've worked with a lot of designers. What separates Brent is that he thinks like a business owner, not a designer. He kept asking 'what's this for?' — and that question shaped everything. The site he built genuinely reflects what we are."
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