Design
The client's previous web portal was very simple and visually basic,
and their real-world brand identity varies from restaurant to restaurant.
The primary challenge was to tie together the
dispirate identities into one consistent and cohesive web brand.
The restaurants themselves are somewhat underground hidden gems and have received many
great reviews in a variety of magazines and papers for their truly authentic food.
This sets them apart from most Asian food places in Dublin. This should be the focus of the site:
show how different the restaurants truly are to their competitors.
The tone of voice, then, is informational, authoritive, and illustrative. And to
play to the perception of 'cool hidden gem' the tones should be
muted with one strong accent color.
New information should be revealed to the user as they scroll, simuating the real-world experience of discovery.
As the owners of the restaurants are Chinese, of course the primary accent needed to be red!
This set against more muted background colors, besides being beautiful, gives prominence to
the important calls to action. This allows the rest of the canvas to be visual, with images of
the cooking and restaurant locations hidden behind muting overlays. Images of food can then pop against a
visually intertesting background.
The tone of voice could be represented textually through contrasting yet complimentary typefaces. A strong slab serif for
the headings and a softer sans serif for the copy.
Finally, the logo needed to be simple and elegant embracing both Western and Asian. Futura was chosen as the logo's
typeface, with a 'Kaiti' brush script style Chinese font making the logo's centre.