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UX Design

Strategy

Brand Identity

Art Direction

 

THE CARRIAGE HOUSE INN

Restaurant Rebrand, Website Design and Customizable Food Ordering System Concept

INTRODUCTION

  • Brand needs to be updated to align with the new menu 
     

  • Needs to appeal to a younger crowd, while still retaining their aging faithful patrons
     

  • Needs to be more approachable and accessible to widen their appeal, while still traditional at its core
     

CHALLENGE

SUMMARY

The Carriage House Inn offers neo-traditional upscale fare for rural Pennsylvanians. It is the finest dining experience in the area, having long offered primarily upscale surf & turf items.

 

Under newly autonomous ownership, they have hired a new executive chef and rebuilt the menu from scratch, the first time any significant changes have been made to the food in decades.

 

With these changes they seek a much-needed expansion of their existing customer base, without losing their long-time loyal patrons.

  • Create a modernized aesthetic for the brand that stays true to its traditional roots
     

  • Complement the menu's push of meals to go and create an online ordering system that showcases menu's many custom options
     

  • Ensure website's ordering system is easy to use for its existing patrons who may be less tech-savvy
     

SOLUTION

 

1. DISCOVERY & PLANNING

Defining the target audience to help ensure an effective project

 ROLES

  • Retirees

  • Foodies

  • Busy businesspeople

 DEMOGRAPHICS

  • Gender - Even

  • Education - High school/College graduates

  • Occupations - Successful businesspeople, retirees

  • Age - Senior

  • Location - Rural

PSYCHOGRAPHICS

  • Gender - Even

  • Education - High school and college graduates

  • Occupations - Successful businesspeople, retirees

  • Age - Primarily senior

  • Location - Rural
     

USER PERSONAS

Creating reliable and realistic representations of key audience segments for reference. Charlotte represented their current primary customer base, while Nikki and James represented segments they were seeking to appeal more to.

REACTIVE VS. PROACTIVE

REACTIVE VS. PROACTIVE

REACTIVE VS. PROACTIVE

MONEY CONSCIOUS

MONEY CONSCIOUS

MONEY CONSCIOUS

TECH SAVVY

USER PERSONAS

CHARLOTTE 

Retiree, 68

  • Former accountant 

  • Owns house in town

  • Husband passed away

  • Enjoys classic fare

 

NIKKI 

Young foodie, 29

  • Waitress at local restaurant

  • Single

  • Rents apartment with a friend

  • Appreciates great food of all kinds

JAMES 

Busy professional, 46

  • Successful salesman

  • Owns home in area and vacation property

  • Married with two children

  • Busy lifestyle with little time to spare

GOALS

  • Continuing to enjoy way of life 

NEEDS

  • Hassle-free ways to enjoy her long-time favorite restaurant

GOALS

  • Finding elevated cuisine

GOALS

  • Simplifying daily responsibilities 

NEEDS

  • Struggles to find good food and locations to enjoy with friends

NEEDS

  •  Fast and simple food options for himself and his family 

RISK TAKER

TECH SAVVY

TECH SAVVY

RISK TAKER

RISK TAKER

 

 USER NEEDS

  • Find out if the restaurant delivers to their area

  • Order online

  • Find out if the restaurant is open

  • Customize the order or pick from a list of options

  • Follow the order after it has been placed

  • Be easy to use for less tech savvy clients
     

CLIENT NEEDS

  • To sell food online that will be delivered

  • Provide a system for order customization

  • Appear professional and sophisticated

  • Communicate upscale

  • Communicate reliability

  • Communicate ease of use
     

WEBSITE SCOPE

CONTENT REQUIREMENTS
 

  • Food menu with customizable options

  • Hours

  • Delivery radius info

  • Pick up info

  • Pricing

  • Images of menu items

  • About Us: History & Mission Statement

  • Contact (Address & Phone)

  • FAQ

  • Easy info structure to ease use for less tech savvy clients
     

FUNCTIONALITY REQUIREMENTS
 

  • Menu with customizable options

  • Add items to shopping cart

  • Check out as guest

  • Create account/Log in

  • View past orders
     

Identifying the needs of both users and client to ensure all content and functionality needs will be met

2. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

USER FLOWS

Protoyping content structure and user flows to creative an optimized and intuitive user experience.

Initial user flows are shown, along with later structure alterations when the site went from concept to reality and actually needed to combine two websites into one.

Wireframes break down all the details of how the custom ordering system would work.

 

WIREFRAMES

Desktop Homepage

Mobile Homepage

Ordering System

4. BRAND IDENTITY

MOOD BOARD

An in-depth breakdown into the background of the branding process.

 

I had a good idea of where I wanted to go with the brand, and creating a modernized take with classical design elements seemed very appropriate. 

But doing background research along the way provides plenty of inspiration and helps create a better result.

Finding inspiration to help set the stage to build a new brand from the ground up, I sought out similar restaurants in other markets around the country, as well as examples of design and visual elements I already had in mind that would help to create a unique modern classic aesthetic.

LOGOS

Main business logo

Decorative logo
(In house menus only)

 

 

Simplified logo

Main secondary logo

Simplified secondary logo

Decorative secondary logo

Once the main font was chosen, creating the logo was initially straight-forward, but eventually for the secondary logo a new H was created from scratch and reintegrated into the original.

And while the CH logo represented the brand well, as it is colloquially known as Carriage House, the owner still felt most comfortable with the full name shown. So an additional logo was created, incorporating the full name with the CH. It has become a main logo where appropriate, but because of its size limiting its use, it is still considered secondary.

WEBSITE LAYOUTS

Homepage

Mobile homepage

Secondary page example

CUSTOM ORDERING SYSTEM CONCEPT

1. Order now button​

2. Category select

3. Custom selections

4. Cart confirmation

5. Payment details

6. Order confirmation

After breaking down the background information and underlying structure, the prototypes were fleshed out and brought to life with an appropriate brand identity.

Decorative header

Bold font​

Regular font

Italic font

Header example

 

 

GLYPHS

Accent example

 

 

STYLIZED UNDERLINES

Page header accents

Section header

FONT LAYOUT EXAMPLE

 

 

COLORS

For the primary colors, a parchment color was an easy choice. For the main color, navy and maroon options were discussed with the owner for buy in. While navy was featured inside, maroon was a main color of the building itself, and could also be used intuitively for CTAs on the website.

Primary colors

Secondary colors

The main decorative font was chosen for its amazing versatility, in addition to being easy to read. And while I also had an ultra condensed font in mind, finding one with excellent legibility as well was tough.

Using three fonts was a bit antiquated, but it seemed appropriate here, and the two secondary fonts meshed pretty seemlessly.

FONTS

 

 

IMAGERY

Food photos: Bright and clean

Atmosphere photos: Parchment color incorporated for a semi-antique look

 

 

GRAPHIC ASSETS

Parchment texture background