Who we are

A creative-direction studio for e-commerce brands — the work that decides whether a brand reads as the leader in its category.

The offer spans brand strategy, photo & video direction, and Shopify builds — taken as a single piece of work or scoped to what a brand needs now. Launched in 2026 as the principal's own studio after roughly twenty years building brands and e-commerce, including pretti.cool, taken to the top of its category as proof the method works.

Senior, studio-level, and proof-driven. We lead with outcomes, not adjectives.

Named for 9:30

The two best, quietest hours of the day — morning before the noise starts, evening after it stops.

Those are the hours when the good ideas finally have room to land. The tagline thread runs from there: "The best ideas keep odd hours."

There's a light Madeline nod in it — "in two straight lines." A martini wink is allowed sparingly and self-aware, never as the load-bearing joke. The asset is the quiet, not the drink — the quiet hour is the hero. Use the name thread in a few hero and CTA moments, not on every page, or it becomes a tic.

Where we stand

• Senior, studio-level — not a freelancer. Vague-by-design about headcount.
• Proof-driven. Lead with outcomes — multiples, percentages, counts — never absolute dollar figures.
• We built our own proof. pretti.cool was taken to the top of its category — evidence the method works, kept as context, never leaned on as a crutch.

Who we're for

E-commerce founders who know they have something good and want a senior creative partner to shape it into the brand it deserves to be. Some need the whole build; some a retainer; some one scoped project.

How we sound

Quietly confident, editorial, senior. A creative director who has done this for twenty years and doesn't need to oversell. Five rules carry it:

• "We" / third-person — never "I." Positions a studio, not a freelancer.
• Lead with the answer. Natural prose, warm but precise. No corporate filler, no hedging.
• No absolute dollar values in public copy — multiples, %, counts, time horizons.
• Confident, not soft. Let the concrete claim carry it; skip the reassurance filler.
• The name thread, sparingly. The quiet hour is the hero, not the martini.

Names & conventions

• Half Past Nine — everywhere. Never "KG Studio" / "Kathrine Gilmer Studio" (superseded).
• "e-commerce" — hyphenated, lowercase mid-sentence; title-case "E-Commerce" only in titles and label lists. Never "ecommerce."
• Shopify, Klaviyo, Faire as branded; DTC, SEO, UX/UI, CD uppercase.

Entity attribution — make Half Past Nine / Kathrine the subject, the entity the context

• 88 Venture client work (J.Adams, Bonsai Heirloom, Shoes for Dinner, Sun Bay Foods, pediped): "…led and directed by Kathrine Gilmer of Half Past Nine, as contract creative director for 88 Venture Studio."
• pretti.cool: "…by Kathrine Gilmer of Half Past Nine, co-founder and creative director of pretti.cool."
• Half Past Nine direct (e.g. Jeff Gilmer Photography): "…by Half Past Nine."

Wordmark & favicon

The wordmark is "HALF PAST NINE" set in Optician Sans — caps, weight 400, with tight tracking (≈ −0.01em). There is no separate graphic logomark; the wordmark is the mark.

Favicon

The brand favicon is the double-slash — two straight lines, a quiet nod to the name's Madeline thread. A 9:30 clock is offered as an alternate.

Brand · on sumac

Brand · on cream

Alternate · 9:30 clock

Typefaces

Palette

Warm, earthy, editorial — a cream base and sumac ink, with a small set of accents used sparingly.

Signature

The studio's Gmail signature. Person leads, the mark anchors, contact and tagline sit back in sumac.

Kathrine Gilmer Founder & Creative Director The best ideas keep odd hours. Creative direction for e-commerce brands halfpastnine.studio  ·  @halfpastnine_studio

Install page (click-to-copy, two options): brand.halfpastnine.studio/signature.html. The live signature uses real Optician Sans for the mark; the tagline is IvyPresto with a Georgia fallback in mail clients.

How we work together

Flagship-first. Lead with the Complete Engagement; the rest scopes down from there. All tiers include access to the production network — photographers, videographers, web developers, graphic designers.

The anchor case — J.Adams

Our canonical proof point. Multiples only, always this exact set:

Plus +15% AOV on the full case-study page. Never translate these into absolute dollar figures.

Where to find us

Platform · Cargo 3Principal · Kathrine GilmerLaunched 2026