Still Life Ceramics

Molding Community, Commerce And Creativity Into One Beautiful Story

Still Life Ceramics is more than just a ceramics studio, it’s a living, breathing movement that's quite grounded in beauty, curiosity, and culture. Born out of a love for architecture, nature, and human connection, this California-based studio wasn’t content with just teaching pottery. They set out to transform it into a source of healing, community, and commerce. But when the world shifted in 2020, so did the clay beneath their feet.

Enter cc Studios: the small-but-mighty team brought on to translate Still Life Ceramics’ artistic soul into digital form, fast. The ask? Create an online home as meaningful as the ceramic pieces themselves. The challenge? Do it during a global pandemic. Oh, and make it breathtaking.

Let’s get into it.

The Challenge

Before 2020, Still Life Ceramics (or “SLC,” as we affectionately call them) was thriving as a haven for creatives in Los Angeles. Their physical studios in Santa Monica and downtown LA buzzed with energy. There were students shaping earth with their hands, artists hosting intimate workshops, and curious minds finding mindfulness through glaze and fire.

Then, the world stopped spinning.

Lockdowns hit. Studio doors shut. And like many creative small businesses, Still Life Ceramics faced the looming question: How do we survive when human connection is our clay?

SLC knew their website wasn’t doing their artistry justice. It was clunky, dated, and not reflective of the soul of the brand. Worse, it offered no way to pivot to the only viable space left during lockdown: the internet.

They needed more than a new website. They needed a digital rebirth.

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Our Approach

We started by asking a simple question: What makes Still Life Ceramics different?


The answer? Their magic lies at the intersection of handmade art, human connection, and soulful teaching. They’re not just teaching pottery. They’re teaching presence. They’re not just selling bowls. They’re selling beauty that lives in your everyday.

So we created an entirely new digital ecosystem, that has equal parts gallery, classroom, and community.

Digital Transformation - The New Studio Door

Designing with Emotion

Commerce with a Conscience

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Digital Transformation - The New Studio Door

In just under six weeks, we built and launched a complete digital storefront and learning platform. That’s right, less than 45 days to take a fully in-person operation and make it live, breathing, and functional online.

We moved all physical classes and workshops to live Zoom sessions, built seamless booking systems, and gave students an intuitive way to sign up, show up, and still feel connected.

From one screen to another, the intimacy remained.

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Designing with Emotion

We weren’t designing a website, we were designing a sanctuary. Every color, texture, and font was chosen to evoke calm, creativity, and groundedness. Navigation was effortless. Class pages felt like invitations, not sales pitches. The store whispered stories of ceramics kissed by kiln fire.

We built something that made people say, “I feel like I’m in the studio,” even from a laptop in their kitchen.

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Commerce with a Conscience

Beyond workshops, SLC also needed a better way to showcase and sell their hand-thrown ceramic pieces. These weren’t mass-produced items. They were intimate, soulful, and made by artists whose names mattered.

We reimagined their product pages to feel like digital art exhibits. Every mug, bowl, and planter was presented like a story that showed the craftsperson behind it, the inspiration, and the imperfections that made each one irreplaceable.

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The Growing Experience: A Creative Empire Emerges

By 2021, the pandemic began to recede—and Still Life Ceramics was thriving.

Their LA studios reopened stronger than ever, with waitlists for in-person classes. But SLC had now tasted something powerful: scalability. With their digital presence flourishing and a reinvigorated global audience of students, they didn’t want to stop.

So they expanded.

In 2023, Still Life Ceramics tapped CC101 Studios again, this time to help them scale like never before. We launched four additional Shopify Plus stores under one beautifully cohesive brand umbrella:

  • Santa Monica, CA


  • Downtown Los Angeles


  • Ferndale, Michigan


  • A fully digital store dedicated to recurring membership programs and online classes


Each storefront was lovingly customized to reflect its local roots while staying true to the brand’s essence. The digital architecture was unified and incredibly efficient, so it's designed for maximum performance and minimum friction.

We built a constellation of digital spaces, all glowing with the same warmth and artistry as the original.

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Results That Speak in Clay

The results? Nothing short of transformational.

  • Full digital migration of a tactile, hands-on business in under six weeks.

  • 100% virtual classes that maintained the intimacy and soul of in-person experiences.

  • Brand growth and audience expansion that transcended physical location.

  • Four new Shopify Plus stores built and launched in rapid succession, and are custom-coded and fully branded.

  • Revenue milestone: Still Life Ceramics is slated to exceed $2 million in 2024 - its highest grossing year yet.

Most importantly? Still Life Ceramics found a way to not just survive, but thrive, in crisis.

The Human Touch: Why It Worked

This wasn’t just a design job. This was a rescue mission. But also a love story.

Still Life Ceramics was founded by women who believe in the power of touch, of creation, of slowing down. They knew their work mattered - and they fought for it with tenacity and tenderness.

At CC101 Studios, we matched that energy. We didn’t treat them like clients. We treated them like co-creators in a shared vision of what a digital creative brand can be. Our developers worked late. Our designers obsessed over every shade of terracotta. Our copywriters drank too much coffee trying to capture the poetry of their mission.

And together - we did it.