A Shopify store that looks like no other

A cult needs believers. A store needs customers. This one needed both.

The Sugar Coated Cult makes objects for people who have read the news and would still like something nice to hold: an ashtray shaped like bad news from space, a keyring that is not for doors, a kit for the fully committed. You cannot sell objects like that from a store that looks like every other store.

So the job was everything a customer meets. A name and a look worth joining. Boxes worth opening. Photographs and films that keep a straight face. And a custom Shopify store design that sells the joke without ever explaining it.

Sell it like a cult. Run it like a store.

Cults have what most brands spend years chasing: a symbol, a colour, a way of talking and people who feel they belong. We borrowed the form and kept the face straight. The name is cut in blackletter, like something carved over a door. There is one orange and no apology for it. The voice never winks: “Welcome to the unsolvable era.” “Not for doors.” You do not buy an object here, you are initiated, and the cart is called an offering.

The store keeps the act up from the first frame to the last click. It opens like a film and never once looks like a template. Underneath it runs on Shopify, which is the whole point: a store can look like nobody else’s and still be the easiest thing its owners run.

Everything a member touches, and everything the owners run.

• The name and the mark

  Blackletter with a straight face, in two settings: stacked for a lid, one line for a strap. You know it from across a room.

• One orange

  A single colour doing the work of a whole campaign, with cream and black to keep it honest.

• Objects and boxes

  The Meteorite arrives in an orange box with its name on the side, because the first thing a member does is open something.

• The photographs

  Every object shot the way the brand talks: plainly, on white, with nothing to hide behind.

• Films and posts

  Short films and posts in the same voice, so the feed sounds like the store and the store sounds like the box.

• The store’s design

  Every screen drawn for this brand alone: a title sequence, halftones that answer your pointer, drawings that turn in your hand, and a short, clear road to the checkout.

• The Shopify store

  A theme written from scratch for this store alone. Its owners add products, change prices and rewrite the jokes themselves; checkout, payments and orders are Shopify’s own, so they simply work.

A store that opens like a film should be seen moving.

Nothing here moves to show off. The opening sets the mood, the drawings invite a hand, the halftone notices you are there. It is the difference between visiting a store and being let into one.

On a desk at midnight, in a hand, in a box.

A brand like this is judged where people meet it: on a screen late at night, on a phone in a queue, on a table when the lid comes off. The store is open now. Membership is one object away.

See it live

Odduel, an award-winning agency: three CSS Design Awards for one Shopify store.

On 2 November 2026 the judges of the CSS Design Awards gave Odduel three awards for The Sugar Coated Cult online store: Best UI Design, Best UX Design and Best Innovation, with Special Kudos and a judges’ score of 7.71 out of 10.

The awards recognise Odduel’s work on the whole store: the brand identity, the UI and UX design and the custom Shopify build, from the home page to the checkout. Read how Odduel won three CSS Design Awards.

A brand, and a store to match.

The Sugar Coated Cult now has the whole set: name, colour, voice, packaging, photographs, films and a Shopify store its owners run without calling us. Every piece speaks in the same deadpan voice, so a customer who meets one recognises the next.

Agency: Odduel. Creative direction: Luciano Panachão.