When COPIC, the iconic Japan-born marker brand trusted by illustrators, designers, and manga artists worldwide, needed to reimagine their online presence, they turned to Emberly Digital to make it happen. The result is a stunning, content-rich Shopify storefront that honors COPIC's craft-driven heritage while giving their team the tools to manage it all themselves.
The Challenge
COPIC's existing site had served its purpose, but the cracks were showing. Content updates were a bottleneck, the design no longer reflected the caliber of the brand, and there was no clear way for customers to navigate a product catalog spanning hundreds of markers, inks, and accessories. For a brand that has earned both a Good Design Award and Stationery of the Year, the digital experience needed to match.
Beyond the technical limitations, COPIC also needed help articulating their story. Distilling decades of Japanese craftsmanship, a proprietary color system of 358 colors, and the loyalty of a global creative community into messaging that resonated on the web was no small task.
There was also a deeper marketing challenge baked into the product itself. The COPIC system is, once you understand it, an incredible value. Markers are refillable, nibs are replaceable, and the 358-color ink system means you're investing in a tool that lasts rather than one you throw away. From a cost-per-use standpoint, COPIC is highly competitive. But that value story is hard to tell at a glance. The breadth of the system (multiple marker families, hundreds of individual colors, refill inks, replacement nibs, accessories) is a strength for advanced artists who already know the ecosystem, but for a newcomer browsing the site for the first time, it can feel overwhelming. The challenge wasn't just making the site look better. It was making the COPIC system understandable, approachable, and clearly worth the investment, without dumbing it down for the loyal professionals who already know and love it.
Perhaps most critically, COPIC's search presence was in serious trouble. Years of marketing initiatives had spawned multiple subdomains that were effectively competing against each other, creating keyword cannibalization across their own properties. The result? COPIC's primary U.S. site wasn't even on the first page of search results for their own brand name, ranking behind the Japanese version of their site. For a brand with global name recognition, being outranked by your own international counterpart is a problem that no amount of great design can fix on its own.
The Solution
Emberly Digital designed and built a completely new COPIC website from the ground up on Shopify 2.0, using a custom block architecture that puts content control directly in the hands of the COPIC team. Every section of the site, from the hero to the product grids, is modular, editable, and built for flexibility without sacrificing design integrity.
Brand Messaging & Positioning
We worked closely with the COPIC team to refine how they talk about themselves, not just what makes the markers distinct (alcohol-based dye inks, a 358-color system, replaceable nibs, refillable ink) but how to communicate the real value proposition: that COPIC is a system designed to last, and that investing in it pays off over time. We helped shape messaging that makes that case clearly throughout the site, in a way that educates newcomers without patronizing the seasoned artists who already get it.
Video-First Storytelling
Video plays a central role in the new experience. A bold hero background video sets the tone immediately, while a dedicated creator showcase highlights artists from around the world, including illustrators, manga artists, and designers, each presented in a clean, editorially formatted layout that lets their work shine.
Marker Comparison Tool
One of the most impactful features is a custom-built comparison tool that allows users to quickly evaluate the differences between COPIC's marker families (Classic, Sketch, Ciao, acrea, and Multiliner sets) side by side. For a product line with meaningful distinctions in tip shape, barrel design, ink capacity, and price point, this tool turns a potentially confusing decision into a clear one.
SEO & Search Strategy
Under the hood, some of the most important work was invisible to the end user. We conducted a full audit of COPIC's subdomain sprawl and implemented a strategy to consolidate their search authority, deindexing competing subdomains and applying canonical tags where appropriate. We restructured their focus keywords, rewrote page content and metadata to target the right terms, and addressed the technical SEO issues that had been holding them back. The impact was dramatic: COPIC rocketed from off the first page to the number one branded search result.
Navigation & Discovery
We implemented mega menu navigation designed to help users efficiently find exactly what they're looking for across a deep catalog of markers, sets, inks, and accessories. Paired with a custom store locator, the site bridges the gap between online browsing and in-person shopping, making it easy for customers to find a COPIC retailer near them.
The Result
The new copicmarkers.com is a digital experience worthy of the brand behind it: clean, vibrant, and unmistakably COPIC. It's a site the team can confidently manage and evolve on their own, backed by a Shopify 2.0 architecture built to grow with them. And where COPIC once struggled to appear on the first page of search results for their own name, they now own the top branded position, exactly where a brand of this caliber belongs.
