Freelancer Highlight: Meet Quintin—Building Solutions, Not Just Websites
Let's talk about the incredible people who help make Dolgify what it is today.
Here's the thing: as someone who juggles creative direction, writing, and eCommerce consulting, there's one skill I'll openly admit I know nothing about—development.
Back when I was running In The Helix, I knew I needed to bring on a Shopify design and development expert. That's when something kind of magical happened.
Quintin Schnehage had just left his agency and was connecting with folks in one of our agency Slack groups. Right when I was thinking about starting my own thing, he reached out for a chat. (Funny how the universe works sometimes, right?)
4 years later, I couldn't be more grateful for that connection. Quintin isn't just an amazing contractor—he's become a good friend and someone who shares my passion for building genuine relationships in this industry.
Maybe it's because we're both neurodivergent and lead with empathy, but we just get each other. You know those rare work relationships where values actually align? Yeah, that's this one. I've learned so much from him over the years, especially about creating better processes (something my creative brain definitely needed help with!).
And let me tell you—Quintin is an absolute unicorn when it comes to his skillset. But I'll let our interview below show you exactly what I mean...
Give us a quick rundown of your experience with design and development
Where to start… I’ve been a professional web designer and developer for over 15 years, but honestly, my experience goes back further than that. I taught myself design and programming when I was around 16. So I guess you could say I have about 20 years of experience in design and development. I feel like I should get a letter from the Queen, or something!
I’ve had a long and interesting career. I’ve spent years working in agencies as both a designer and a developer. I’ve taught design and programming at a college level. I’ve had adventures in startup life as the senior designer and creative lead for a tech startup, where I learned the value of intense work and long grinds. Finally, about eight years ago, I discovered Shopify, and started freelancing, working with both agencies and brands. Working on Shopify feels like home — it’s endlessly interesting, and I’ve made a lot of friends and collaborators in the space. I haven’t looked back!
It’s strange to say it, but although almost all of my work these days is development work, I honestly think of myself more as a designer than a developer. I’m a very creative person and have always had a talent for visual design and communication — it feels like play to me! I feel like the fact that I’m both a designer and developer gives me a real edge. I can see the whole picture, but I can also zoom into the details.
Can you give me a general overview of what your design and development process is like?
At the very beginning, I like to zoom all the way out and talk to our client. I want to understand their business and get an intuitive feel for the challenges they face and put myself in their shoes, before we even talk about the project. This helps me build empathy with our client, their situation and an understanding of their business challenges, and how we can help them. Understanding the business isn’t just part of design, it’s a cornerstone of the design process.
Once I have this broad overview of the business, I like to start talking about the details. I take what I’ve learned and put together a list of proposed deliverables, mapping out the project with an outline. Usually this takes the form of a Discovery Document, which is the “Bible” of the project and guides everything that follows.
Once we have an outline, I move into Design Mode, jump into Figma and start to “play”. I spend a long time defining brand colors and typography, playing with layouts. At this point, I have a good feel for the brand and what they’re looking for in terms of design. I like to get feedback early and often to make sure we’re on the right track.
When we have a design finalized, all that’s left is to execute on it. That’s when I switch over to Dev Mode, and start building out what we’ve designed. At this point, I become like a machine — constantly switching between the design and my code editor, slowly converting the pretty pictures into code.
Clients can sometimes be wary of purchasing a discovery upfront. What value does an upfront discovery phase bring to the project?
It makes a huge difference to the quality of the end result, and lets us estimate project costs and timeline accurately.
A common complaint clients of agencies have is that projects take a lot longer than the agency quoted initially, or worse, that they’d need more money than they thought to complete a project halfway through. This is usually because the agency bit off more than they could chew, because they didn’t do their due diligence in actually understanding exactly what they are building. They simply quote you the market’s “going rate”, or what they think you will be able to pay.
A discovery phase allows us to accurately determine your needs and the project scope and costs — no fluff, and no bullshit.
A discovery phase also gives us a deep understanding of and empathy for our client’s business needs and challenges. It helps us understand how to really make a difference. Quite often, some needs and and wants come out in our consulting calls that our clients wouldn’t have thought to mention before, which let us help in ways that really made a difference to them that they didn’t even expect.
Imagine building a house without a blueprint, without a project plan, and without a trusted network of suppliers for the materials. This is what many agencies do for their clients, and it’s shockingly common.
We’re not like that. We spend the time to sit with you, understand what we need to build for you, and how much time and resources will be involved before quoting you and setting aside our capacity so we can be totally focused on your work.
Obviously building an ecommerce store or redesigning one comes with a significant price tag. I like to see it as an investment. Can you maybe explain what a merchant is investing in when they’re putting down 15-20k for a redesign?
I agree with how you see it: as an investment.
Put another way: We are building the foundation for your entire online business for the next 2-5 years.
Designing, building and running an ecommerce store is a significant undertaking. Done well, it can set your brand up for success and make going from strength to strength and dominating your niche a breeze.
Your website should pay for itself. I have worked on projects where we have succeeded in doubling or even tripling our client’s revenue within a year or two. Measured against the kind of revenue they are making now, $30K was the best money they ever spent.
It’s also why it’s important to hire the most qualified folks for the job. Expertise comes with a price tag, but as the saying goes, “If you think experts are expensive, wait until you hire an amateur.”
How did you decide on designing and developing websites only on Shopify as opposed to other ecommerce platforms?
Over my career I’ve touched so many content management systems and ecommerce platforms. For a long time, I built Wordpress / WooCommerce websites. I’ve worked with Squarespace and Wix, and I’ve also touched Magento and BigCommerce websites.
Shopify is the most user-friendly platform of them all. It’s not even close. Shopify makes it so easy for merchants to manage their stores, and so easy for developers and designers like me to work with it.
Shopify are also constantly improving their platform. I’ve lost count of the number of times I finished watching an Editions live event by punching the air, because they added a feature I’ve wanted for ages, or even better, that I didn’t know I even wanted! Shopify is a drastically different and hugely improved platform now to what it was even a few years ago.
Finally, the thing that kept me in the Shopify ecosystem is how vibrant it is. There are so many incredible individuals and companies building amazing things on Shopify, whether they’re brands or agencies or apps. I’m constantly inspired by all the wonderful folks I’ve worked with over the years. There’s something priceless about that.
Ok…I need to bring this up, but do you remember that time you accidentally left images of dildos on the mockups of a home hardware client we were working with? Any other funny stories you’d like to share or does that one take the cake?
Oh my GOD, Laura. 🙈🤣 Don’t remind me!
The story behind that was that I was working on a wonderful sex-positive adult lifestyle brand’s website while we were also working together on a mutual client who basically sold cabinet hardware - cabinet knobs and the like. Since we were designing it on the same theme, I did what any designer would do and reused part of the design… but left some of the product photography in.
I was mortified, but luckily the client was pretty amused and you found it hilarious.
I’ve had a few moments like that in my career, but I think that one definitely takes the cake!
Do you think it’s important for a web designer/developer to take a more active role in brand strategy? Why? Why not?
I think that it’s perfectly possible for elite designers and developers to stay in their lane and focus just on the design, or just on the development. But that isn’t my style. I think being a multi-disciplinary professional gives me a big edge in my work.
I do think having insight and knowledge about other parts of the brand’s strategy does elevate your work. Just using our own collaborations as an example — I’ve never worked with you on a project where I’ve been responsible for the brand to any extent, but working alongside you and seeing the branding work you do for our clients energises and inspires me, helps me generate ideas, and helps make my design work even better.
Above all, I think that it’s really important for the designer or developer to understand how they fit into the bigger picture. You’re not just a programmer hammering out a theme, or a designer drawing pretty pictures. You’re a professional who is helping to lay the groundwork for a business’s future. That’s a big responsibility, and it’s one I try to live out every day.
How involved do you think merchants need to be during a website build?
I think that merchants often underestimate the amount of work that goes into completing their side of a project.
A web design project is a mutually executed endeavor, and there are parts of the project that your agency isn’t (and can’t be) responsible for. I often see brands not planning for the amount of work they need to put in generating new content for the project, or updating their catalogue and doing the hard work on product data.
To be fair, it’s not something that many companies are cognizant of, regardless of their size. Keeping an ecommerce business running is hard work, and it’s difficult to keep track of everything all of the time. It’s part of our job to also outline your responsibilities for you in a project, and what you need to deliver to us and within what timeframe for us to execute on our work effectively.
Are there any current ecommerce designs you’re currently loving that you want to share with us?
I’m busy remodelling my home, and while looking for a supplier for some nice and trendy wooden acoustic panels, I came across WoodUpp. They’re a Danish brand that manufacture wooden acoustic panelling, which they sell under their brand name, Akkupanel.
The panels are easy to install, look beautiful, and dampen the acoustics in a space. The result is a trendy, minimal wall cladding that looks great and sounds amazing, too.
What I love about the site is that it’s clear they understand their customer perfectly. They know that someone remodelling their home has many questions about how it will look in their space, what color options are available, how much of the panelling they will need, and how the panels are installed. To answer these questions before they’re even asked, the site provides tools and calculators, offers sample products, and beautiful videos demonstrating how the product is installed. They have an augmented reality feature that allows you to visualise how the panels will look in your space - you upload a photo of your room, and it magically shows you how your walls or ceiling will look covered with Akkupanel. It even has a feature where you can hear samples of audio recorded in a space with the panels and without them, so that customers can hear the difference the product makes.
They have also fairly recently begun selling an accessory range they call the CREATE range. Whoever came up with that range need to be given double their salary, immediately. They’ve effectively invented a brand new product category specific and unique to their brand, which allows their customers to add shelves, displays and hangers to their walls with zero effort and that can be moved around with ease. They look beautiful and it’s a natural extension of their hero product. It gives them the opportunity to remarket to customers who have already installed their product years ago, and that those customers will immediately want to buy it.
Finally, the design of the site is beautifully minimal and contemporary, which reflects their product perfectly.
(Notice how the site looks was my last, and shortest, comment?)
What project did you enjoy working on most together? Why?
It’s so hard to pick one, because we’ve done so much great work together… but if I had to choose, it would probably be the site relaunch for The Cravory.
The Cravory was actually the very first client you brought to me, back in 2021. The business had seen a huge growth spurt over 2020, but the theme that it was on was outdated and full of buggy code. They were just starting to offer subscriptions, but were having trouble communicating delivery timelines and customers were getting confused. The business also wanted to offer upsells based on other promotions they were running, which wasn’t possible with the theme they were on. I helped solve some of these pain points by building a bespoke drawer cart, which pulled together all of these different facets, and doing some maintenance work on the theme to keep it ticking over. Since then I’ve been working on the site with you, on and off, for years.
In 2023 The Cravory decided they wanted to turn the page and move into a new chapter in their business journey, and asked us to redesign their store from scratch.
In our discovery phase, we carefully revisited and documented everything that had been added to the site over the last 5 years. It was great fun getting to know Nate, Collin and Talita, the directors of the company, and learning more about The Cravory’s business — turns out, the cookie business is no joke!
The website relaunch coincided with a major brand refresh for the business, and it was amazing fun to collaborate with you and draw inspiration from the great work you were to revitalise The Cravory’s brand.
We decided to build the site on the incredible Impact theme by our theme partners, Maestrooo, who make the best themes on the Shopify theme store, in my opinion. We were also very fortunate to be collaborating with the creative studio, Luniste, who were crafting some beautiful product photography for the business, and I was even to make some requests for original imagery to realize some of my design ideals. It’s not every day that that happens! I always feel like I do my best work working under pressure with creative and ambitious people.
One of the highlights of the project for me was one of the final couple of calls. We had all been working incredibly hard on the project for months, and I think we were all feeling quite strung out… when Collin (our client’s operations manager) joined the Zoom call wearing a full cookie monster outfit.
Ecommerce is a tough game, and no one person can make a project a success… so it’s so important to partner with people who know what they’re doing, and that bring out the best in each other and help elevate each other’s work.
How can someone get in touch with you?
If you want to get in touch with me, add me on LinkedIn, or send me an email at quintin@uxforge.io! Feel free to reach out, I’d be happy to chat to you.
If you’d like to work with me, you can get in touch directly with Laura, she’s my agent ;)
