Carmens Group is a hospitality and event management company offering services in catering & dining experiences and venue rentals.
UX/UI DESIGN | weB DESIGN | brand design
OVERVIEW
Carmens Group (Carmens) approached us to refresh their brand identity and redesign their website to be optimized on desktop and mobile. One of their main goals was to elevate and modernize their historic brand to better reflect its evolution from a recognized, local family business to a reputable hospitality and event management company. I was involved as the lead designer to develop and update their colour palette and typography, as well as develop the designs for all of their website pages.
DESIGN PROCESS:
BRAND IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
When creating the brand system for Carmens, a few keywords rose to the surface to help influence the final output: modern, elevated, elegant, and strong. The brand colours and typeface were carefully curated to balance their updated visual identity system. The colour breakdowns defined here are meant to capture the purest intent of their palette, allowing a consistent relationship across digital and printed applications.
DESIGN PROCESS:
USER RESEARCH
After finalizing the brand identity for Carmens, I began conducting user research and determining the main target audiences.
I then categorized them in order to personalize the website’s features, functions and user experience to each category’s needs and preferences.
DESIGN PROCESS:
HIGH-FIDELITY DESIGNS
Once we settled on the information architecture and user flows, I began developing the wireframes for the redesign. After many iterations, I proceeded to develop the high-fidelity designs, incorporating the images, updated colour palette and custom copy.
It is important to note that crafting the brand story of Carmens was essential to differentiate that from their competitors. There were three main parts to developing their brand story:
1) Revealing and telling users the history of their company
2) Showcasing their founders and culture of their company
3) Turning it back to their customers and they can give back
DESIGN PROCESS:
USER PERSONA
After determining our target audience and insights on their main goals, I built a user persona in order to understand and define expectations and motivations behind users.
Creating this persona really helped identify the pain points, which are UX issues that can frustrate or block a user from getting what they need from the website.
Pictured above: a glance at the homepage design