Marianne Ferguson
Shopify Developer / Designer / Founder at Ultrafine
Porto, Portugal (originally from the UK!)
Q What do you do?
“I design, build and optimize Shopify websites for high-growth brands, mostly in the luxury fashion, beauty and homeware spaces.”
Projects range from big custom theme rewrites to designing email flows on Klaviyo, and everything in between!
I essentially like solving problems, whether it’s deep-diving into SEO opportunities to drive more organic traffic or building a product quiz to help customers find the right products for them.
Q What steps did you take to get to where you are now?
Before teaching myself to code, I led Customer Experience teams for luxury brands for a while (Burberry alumni here!). It helped me to develop a real understanding of customer behavior and, honestly, it underpins everything I do today. I love making everything as smooth as possible for customers. Also, that experience gave me an unhealthy obsession with process maps.
However, I’d always been interested in design (and I was an avid reader of computer magazines from a young age, which is only a tiny bit embarrassing) so I was yearning to do something more creative.
I finally took the plunge in 2016 and took a short online course in HTML and CSS, then started building a few websites for friends and family. Once I was more confident, I took on my first paying clients. A couple of years later, I found myself freelancing as a web developer for some amazing digital agencies in the U.S., working on huge brands that I could have only dreamt of working on!
It was around two years ago, after moving back to Europe, that I decided to go out on my own again and build my own client relationships as Ultrafine. I’d developed a strong skill set in design and development, but I wanted to exercise my marketing skills more – plus I love working with clients directly.
Q How do you stand out in your field?
I get to know my clients’ customers as well as they do. It’s the only way to know how to serve them. I do the research, then I tailor the solution around their needs.
I’m good at finding practical solutions. If there’s a way of achieving a goal faster and on a lower budget, I’ll make that my first recommendation. I also won’t hold back on explaining any drawbacks.
I’m also really quick – my clients always comment on that. I guess it’s a mix of experience and technical skill, but it means I get things done and I do them well!
Q What are you working on right now?
I’m currently helping one of my clients streamline their inventory management and writing/designing their newsletters. I’m also working on a public Shopify app.
When I have a bit of downtime, I’m usually writing for the Ultrafine blog.
Q What’s your style?
I design clean, minimal interfaces that are easy to absorb visually. I use only light animations to enhance the experience. I’ll always choose usability over aesthetics, but I love trying to find the sweet spot between the two.
A project that I’m really proud of is Parfait. Backed by Serena Ventures, Parfait uses AI to create wigs that are tailored to each customer. As well as redesigning most of their website, I also designed and built a multi-step product customizer to help customers move seamlessly through what would be an otherwise complex product page.
You can see desktop and mobile mock-ups here:
www.ultrafine.co/work/parfait/.
Q Out of all your slashies, which one do you wish you could do more often?
My experience leans slightly more towards development so I’d love to take on more design-only projects. I want to push my skills further and I really enjoy every step of the design process.
Q What is frustrating you right now?
I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I struggle with self-promotion. I’m much better at bigging up other people/brands than myself unfortunately. I know I need to post more, and it’s a skill that can be learned like any other, but talking about myself just doesn’t feel comfortable (I know, I know, I’m getting through these questions alright aren’t I!).
Q If you could hire someone for $20/hour, what would you have them do to make your day easier?
Probably someone to help me with social media and content. Since $20/hour wouldn’t be enough to hire a copywriter, maybe I could hire someone to research the types of content I can work on, give me guidelines for each platform and keep me accountable!
Q What do you wish you could have told yourself, when, and why?
I think I would have told myself to believe in myself. I didn’t even consider web design and development as a career because I literally thought I wasn’t capable of it. But I don’t regret all the experience I got working in CX – it’s given me so much perspective and I wouldn’t change that for the world. Of course I still struggle with self-doubt but it’s fading away with every project!
Q If you could talk to an expert to gain more insight on something, what would it be about?
I love everything UX so I’d like to pick the brains of some of the people at Nielsen Norman Group: emerging insights on mobile best practices, how far are users happy to scroll on mobile nowadays, what’s the latest on carousel usability, etc. I’d like to hear their hunches, the stuff they haven’t had a chance to write up yet.
I’d also like to learn more about product development. I’m stuck in my brain a lot of the time and don’t often get to handle physical products, so I’m interested to learn about different materials, how they come together, production methods, etc. I’d like to follow someone as they develop a new cosmetic product for example, and hear about what different ingredients work and why.
Q What kind of opportunities/projects are you looking for?
I enjoy working with brands that value quality and craftsmanship. They could be looking to solve a problem, whether that’s improving conversions, reducing returns or driving customer loyalty, or launching a new range, service or promotion.
Typical projects include website refreshes, customer journey redesign, building a new feature or page, implementing subscriptions or loyalty programs, or anything where a solid eye for design and development skills are needed to build something useful, quickly and well.
Q Describe your ideal job/client/collaboration.
My ideal project is a full website refresh, when the brand is at least 1–2 years into their ecommerce journey, has a bunch of data, a list of pain points and a good idea of where they want to go.
The Parfait project was one of my favorite projects because I had so much data to learn from before starting design: customer interviews, support queries, various analytics tools. By the time I’d absorbed it all I knew exactly who their customer was, how the product worked, what they wanted from it and what they were anxious about. That initial discovery allowed me to redesign the whole customer journey around those insights and achieve solid results for my client.
Q What is your rate?
A prebuilt Shopify theme is currently in the $5,000–$25,000 range depending on the level of customization and support.
A custom-designed and developed Shopify theme is currently in the $25,000–$50,000 range depending on the design, features and level of support that are required.
Q How should someone approach you about working together?
Just send an email over to marianne@ultrafine.co with your URL, budget and what you’re looking for so we can set up an initial chat!
Q Who is a creative you admire?
Nic Chan is an amazing front-end developer and artist based in Hong Kong. She’s passionate about accessibility and has taught me SO much.
Dani Tucker. She styles events and tablescapes for prestigious brands and publications and recently launched her tableware and props hire business thesocialkitchen.org. Constantly in awe of her creativity. Plus she works with photographer Ella Miller , who is also incredibly talented.
Last but not least, Emmie is an abstract painter who I worked with back in London and who creates the most beautiful art. I love her style.
Q Oh! and… how do you stay creative?
Nature, reading and writing. And limiting time spent on socials!
This member profile was originally published in July 2023