The Problem
Background
Empire Roasters and Records is a small coffee shop in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood. They sell both Coffee and Vinyl records. It was named after a street called the Empire street. When I visited Empire, I got to experience the vibe of the place and its aesthetics. The following words describe the brand:
MY ROLE
UI Design, Branding, Logo Design, UX Design, Prototyping, Wireframing, Branding
DURATION
5 weeks, November - December 2023
TEAM MEMBERS
Lakshmi Narayana
The primary communication goals for the redesign were set:
Coherence
Alignment with the brand
Easier Navigation
Better Organization
Ideation and Sketching
I first made a mood-board to visualize my idea and used it as a reference to come up with a team for the brand.
I generated logo concepts through brainstorming and initiated the sketching phase.
Iteration
After generating the concepts, I started to make the initial versions of the logo.
V1
Final Prototype
The idea was to play around with coffee and records but this version had detailed minute graphics which makes it not scale-friendly.
I tried to remove the minute graphics and tried to make it a little more organic and hand-drawn. But it felt more like a picture than a logo.
A more scalable logo. Also aligns with the original idea.
Reflections
The current online website of the shop is to be redesigned due to the following things:
Lacked Coherence: The pages throughout the website were not cohesive.
Did not align with the brand: The colors used in the website did not exactly align with the vibe of the shop.
Lacked organization: The website as a whole lacked organization and visual hierarchy.
Communication Goals
V2
V3 - Final Version
Prototyping
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Style Guide
Task Flow
The user can navigate to the menu directly from the homepage. The menu is grouped based on food categories which makes it easier for the user to navigate.
Easier Navigation and Organization
The main objective of the redesign was to adress the following issues:
Coherence
Unlike the original design, this interface is cohesive throughout all pages.
Brand Identity
The colours and the iconography aligns with the brand.
This project helped me understand the importance of visual hierarchy and the importance of practicality of a design. One major thing I followed throughout the process was to question myself if the design was practical. This helped me eliminate a lot of initial ideas ultimately moving towards a practical outcome. If I had more time I would’ve worked on the transitions of the prototype and overall design.