Joules.com: New vs. Old

One of the clothing brands I’ve looked to for inspiration over the past 2 years is Joules Clothing. They are a lovely lifestyle brand for women, men and children and promote healthy and active lives. A brand that is British to its core, which in itself is very refreshing.

To my initial glee and excitement I read that they’ve re-designed their website. I liked their old website anyway so I was keen to see how they’d developed it… so I won’t beat around the bush, I am disappointed with the new look.

NEW Joules.com

OLD Joulesclothing.com

My opinion is that the brand is completely diluted into a bland website that conforms to the standardised layout that all the top clothing brands seem to be doing these days. I understand we’re all learning from each other and it must work if the likes of ASOS, Topshop and Warehouse are doing it, but I think this is an utterly wrong approach. Let’s grow some distinction and not be afraid to try something new.

Joules Head of IT said “We had to take into account not only our presence here in the UK but also the online requirements of our franchisees, sales partners and distributors throughout the rest of the world.” (read the article this quote came from on Drapers http://bit.ly/d50EQp). From this statement I can understand they might want to back away from the patriotism to Britain in order to appeal to a wider world audience, but does it really need to come at a price of losing the brand’s heritage?

My biggest disappointment with their new website is the dilution of their “Living the Good Life” area; this was a superb area of brand content which they’ve now converted to be “just a blog”. If you didn’t see it before, it was a brand experience full of beautiful graphics, videos and clickable areas that were immersive and, if I were in control, would have been developed into so much more with the new website. Visit the Joules blog here http://blog.joules.com/

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the new website is bad at all. In fact the homepage is lovely, bold and inspiring and the navigation holds a hint of their branding. The entire website has everything it should and flows well, but in short, it is a total ASOS.com replica so how could it be perceived badly? There isn’t much point in carrying out a website review of joules.com because we’ve seen everything it has to offer on ASOS.com.