Topshop or ASOS?

In July this year, I was really pleased to see that Topshop re-launched their website. The much needed refresh brought a number of great new features to the site, including multiple views of each item, a number of filtering mechanisms and a cleaner, bolder design.

However, something strange happened when I was using the site recently. I couldn’t help but feel like I was somewhere different altogether… somewhere like ASOS. The redesigned Topshop site has some very striking similarities to ASOS.com.

The masthead is practically indistinguishable, save for the logo. They even used the area just below the navigation to promote the same types of messages. The new filters are in exactly the same place on both sites. The layout of key pages, like the homepage and category pages are so similar I can’t tell which site I’m on. It makes me wonder if they went a bit too far with taking inspiration from industry best practice.

The downside of all of this is that it dilutes brand experience on the Topshop website for me. The site looks great and works well, but I don’t leave it feeling like a got a unique Topshop experience.

Redesigning a site from scratch is challenging and using examples of best practice for inspiration can be a good starting point for ideas. If you’re going to do this though, try to draw from various sources (both in and out of sector) and be careful how far you take your ‘homage’ if you want to retain a distinctive brand experience online.

30/11/10 Joshua Lay said:

Yep! A long with Topshop; the Arcadia group chain has spawned a lot of clone sites. There's no character at all to them. Navigationally I think they've improved; but as you've stated. Brand experience is lost. http://www.missselfridge.com/ sports an identical look.