The Fir + The Fig
Rebrand
THE GOAL The Fir + The Fig is a beautiful resort style vacation estate rental in the heart of Sonoma Wine Country. The owners felt the 7 year old establishment had earned the right to a digital makeover. They wanted something reflective of the times, the renovations and updates that had occured since opening it's doors, and most importantly the savvy guests who stay there. The initial site designed by the owner and his handy HTML book, no longer seemed appropriate for the property that had more than tripled it's annual income since the first website had been published. Although the estate was holding it's own with revenue, nothing about their digital presence showed progression with current times.
The answer was a responsive website, as well as complete and total rebranding, including: a new logo, leave behind pieces like pamphlets and post cards, a stylish book about the property, new business cards and marketing material, and packaging design for homemade products like baked goods (made from fresh organic vegetation on the property), fir and fig infused candles, and bags the guests could take back home as keepsakes. The items would be pre-sold to guests from the website during booking.
Lastly, they wanted to be brought current in the social media sector. Outside of a dated Facebook page, they had no presence on social media. So, I was tasked to lay down the foundations of an Instagram account, get their first few hundred followers, as well as other relevant social media, like Pinterest.
Let's do this folks!
MY ROLE Brand design, interaction design, user research/testing, visual design, book design, packaging design, graphic design, social media design and strategy
The Process
INITIAL RESEARCH The first step, as always, involves my sitting down with major stakeholders and learning as much as I can about the establishment. Knowing which questions to ask, as well as when to talk and when to listen has been the most valuable skill I have honed in my career, no matter the discipline. Getting clients to talk about their projects with passion and candor is where my design process begins and always gets everyone (including me!), excited to jump right in.
From there, I gathered any input and insight they wanted to give (sites they love, brands they love, reasons why, etc), and developed an outline for the project scope. I researched the market and helped them to understand the importance of documentation and past visitor history, as well as the importance of uncovering their most frequent visitor type and situation to make informed decisions about future strategies. I looked at what presence they had online at the time, and went over with them what was and wasn't working. As well, I helped them to decipher the functionality their site up had, the site's limitations and introduced them to new tools that could increase functionality. The goal was to get more out of the website for both their clients, themselves, and going forward for any staff they hired on. I outlined the first draft of the website to meet their early deadline goals, and 2 future iterations as budget and time permitted and as the company grew. I researched the market and shared with them what their competitors were doing, what like websites were doing and on a broader scope highlighted similar sites that were at the top of the market and the reasons why.
This session helped to flush out user requirements which I used to layout the preliminary architecture information. The requirements, userflow and sitemap are shown below.
USER REQUIREMENTS + USERFLOW DIAGRAM
SITEMAP
MOOD & DESIGN While nailing down some of the basic concepts for the new site, I started to think about the look and feel of the site. Unless there is reason to do otherwise, I generally steer clients towards a clean layout, for the ease of use for the user. Most clients choose me because that is the aesthetic I naturally lean towards. This project was no different. Stakeholders agreed that was the right look for modern times, so I got to work selecting typefaces, colors and iconography that were in keeping with that concept. As well, I provided photo inspiration to give to their photographer for website images. Some images they already had, so I had to incorporate them into the site design. The final site included both types of images. I selected the font Proxima Nova and used icons that felt similar to the logo. The color palette I pulled from decor in the house.
MOODBOARD
NAVIGATION Since clients landing on this site would be clients who would likely book, and there was no competition (like an Airbnb type website for example) I focused on helping the user to navigate the site easily to see what the house had to offer and book easily. I wanted to provide many detailed images of all aspects of the house and property. As well it was important to make the date request process easy, but also allow the owners to approve each stay individually. The site provided users an easy way to contact the owners, get suggestions, make special requests and several other features. Efficiency was a goal with the idea to improve upon iterations, so what wasn't covered initially would eventually be tackled down the line, those features include a portal for the owners, client accounts, staff accounts, onsite payment options, a storefront with ecommerce for products and services, instant service requests, and on.
WIREFRAMES
WIREFLOWS
FINAL SITE: ITERATION 1 The first iteration of The Fir & the Fig can be found at www.thefirandthefig.com.
