Niche Optical
Tailor.
Niche already had the taste, reputation and point of view. My job was to make the digital experience feel like it belonged to the same world.
“You can only be as good as your taste.”
Overview
Niche Optical Tailor is an independent optician in Glasgow’s Merchant City. I first worked with the brand more than 15 years ago. In 2026, we picked the relationship back up again to create its first proper website.
A visual language built around taste.
The early work balanced a restrained identity with a much more expressive image world: eyewear, fashion references, customers and fragments of the store’s personality.
Quiet identity.
Loud point of view.
Make the next step obvious.
The mobile direction focused on the essentials: frames, story, location and getting somebody from the site into the store.
The website was never meant to replace the shop.
Its job was to make people curious enough to visit, call or book an appointment.Let the imagery carry the experience.
Desktop gave the brand more room to breathe. The interface stayed quiet so the frames, people and visual references could hold the attention.
The restraint was intentional. Niche already had character; the website just needed to give that character space.
Back where we started. But different.
I first worked with Niche more than 15 years ago, helping create its original website and translate the character of the store into a digital experience. In 2026, I returned to work with Brenda and the team again, rethinking Niche for where the business is now. The new site brings together the store, its history, independent designers, optical expertise, personality and connection to Niche Bazaar, while keeping the distinctive point of view that has always made Niche feel different from a conventional optician.
There is something nice about returning to a brand after more than 15 years. The design changes. The taste that made it interesting in the first place does not.