Miau Atelier: from brand identity to a live store for the United States.
A self-initiated project, built end to end: naming and identity, a Shopify store selling in USD, a headless Next.js storefront, catalog curation and a pipeline that turns generic supplier photos into editorial photography in the brand’s style.
- Market
- United States, in USD
- Platform
- Shopify + Stripe
- Catalog
- 15 art-directed pieces
- My role
- Brand, store, code and operations
The store’s homepage. Scroll inside the window to see the full page.
Selling to the United States from Brazil, as a brand and not a generic store.
The pet products niche is full of identical dropshipping stores: white-background supplier photos, translated copy and brands with no identity. Miau Atelier is the opposite: objects for cats designed as home pieces, the kind you leave in plain sight in the living room.
That meant three things at once: a strong visual identity, a store able to charge in USD from a Brazilian company, and a whole catalog photographed to one editorial standard, with no studio and no physical access to the products.
- Brand identity
Naming, wordmark, monogram, badge, palette, typography, taglines and content and image guidelines.
- Headless storefront
Shopify Payments could not charge USD for a Brazilian merchant, so I built a Next.js storefront with Stripe Checkout in USD and orders synced to Shopify.
- Change of course
Once Shopify supported USD with Stripe in the native checkout, I moved the same identity to the Dawn theme. Simpler to run, same design.
- Catalog and art direction
Supplier curation, margin-based pricing and an AI image pipeline that keeps each product exactly as it is.
- Operations
Custom domain, policies, brand email addresses, Google Merchant Center and automations through the Shopify API.
Objects for cats. Designed for living.
A brand that behaves like a home and interiors brand, not a pet store: warm, quiet, tactile and contemporary. The visual system was created with AI and refined by hand, with written rules to keep every piece consistent.
Logo system
Palette
Typography
Designed to belong.
Playfair Display · headingsObjects for cats
Designed for living
“Would you keep it in plain sight, in your living room? If not, it is not a Miau Atelier piece.”
From supplier photo to editorial photography
Every product arrives with generic marketplace photos. The pipeline generates new images from the original photo, keeping the product exactly as it is (shape, color, proportions and materials) and changing only the setting, light and composition to the brand standard. Drag to compare.
- 01
Curation
Products chosen for how they look in a living room: wood, natural fiber, clean shapes. US stock and a cost that allows a healthy margin.
- 02
Draft and copy
Each piece starts as a draft, with an object-like name, copy in the brand voice and only supplier facts, no invented claims.
- 03
A prompt that preserves
A structured prompt locks the product (shape, color, proportion) and changes only setting, materials, light and composition, with rules to keep the cat realistic.
- 04
Generation and approval
Images are generated from the original photo and approved one by one. Even usable photos were redone so the catalog shares one light.
- 05
Automated publishing
Python scripts upload the images through the Shopify API, replace the gallery, link variants and activate the product on every channel.
- 06
A record of everything
A versioned mapping keeps the source, prompt and approved file of every image, ready to reuse for other stores.
Fifteen pieces, one visual language
Beds, scratchers, towers, perches and feeding pieces, all photographed to the same editorial standard.
A store that looks like the brand on every screen
Shopify’s Dawn theme reconfigured with the Miau Atelier identity: palette, typography, square corners, no shadows, curated collections and revised copy. The same calm on mobile.
Behind the storefront
Shopify store
- Dawn theme with the brand identity, versioned in a repository
- Curated collections, menus and custom pages
- USD checkout with Stripe
- Clear shipping, returns and terms policies
Headless storefront
- Next.js with the App Router and React 19
- Stripe Checkout in USD with idempotent webhooks
- Orders written to Shopify through the Admin API
- Customer accounts, predictive search and full SEO
Automation and operations
- Python scripts for the Admin API: catalog, pricing, theme and images
- Image pipeline with a versioned mapping
- Google Merchant Center and conversion tracking
- Custom domain and brand email addresses
Want a store like this for your business?
From brand identity to a live store, with product photography in your brand’s style. Tell me what you sell.