Create a website for a fine woodworking company Oak and Mulberry

Oak and Mulberry

Oak and Mulberry is a British artisan woodworking company, with a passion for promoting the great variety of wood available in the United Kingdom through products of a high quality. Our mission is to take on the current throw-away culture of purchasing cheap, poorly made furniture and furnishings, by creating products that last. Our audience has a considerable disposable income and doesn’t mind paying that little extra for a luxury item that will last. This is a small company and not a faceless large corporation, those values are important to us, and should be projected at all times.

1. Minimal/clean website, with a strong focus on photography of the products (see HardGraft https://www.hardgraft.com and FatherRabbit https://fatherrabbit.com websites). The products should tell the story of the brand and highlight our values for quality.

2. Clean unobtrusive menus, almost hidden from view (see HardGraft website). Giving uninterrupted browsing

3. Grid based design. Prefer non-uniformity when viewing on a desktop PC and a stacked grid on mobile (see Mikiyakobayashi website http://www.mikiyakobayashi.com)

4. Should work well on a mobile device. Easy and intuitive. Design where a user can simply scroll to view products and swipe on an image to view parts of a collection. Therefore, reducing the overall amount of clicks

5. The site should be designed for a small collection of initial products that will grow over time, as the company becomes established

6. Prefer grey/green tones for the colour scheme (inspiration from Little Greene Paint https://www.littlegreene.com). Hoping for a warm tone, but still having that air of luxury
https://www.littlegreene.com/paint/…y-moss-234
https://www.littlegreene.com/paint/…f-soot-244

7. This will ultimately be used as a design for an e-commerce website and will become a Shopify template

8. Designer has freedom on the typography

1. Homepage

• Clean minimal design. Company logo at the top, followed by a paragraph highlighting the core values of the business.
• Menus are discreet and should pop out when the visitor clicks on them (see HardGraft website)
• Gallery of products. Not yet decided on whether this should be a uniform grid design, or something a little more dynamic
• The products should be the focus, this is the most important part of the business
• Footer should contain the standard information, social links, subscribing to our newsletter
• Would like pop-out menus for cart, contact and main menu (contains links to other future content such as a blog, Instagram etc.)

2. Product Information

• Large photo of the product
• Story behind the product, our design inspiration, followed by technical details of the product
• Further gallery of photos, showcasing how the product could be used
• All images should have a nice integration with Pinterest
• Final section, showcasing other products that would go well with this item

3. Cart/Checkout Page

• Single page layout, divided into two parts. The left-hand side is for collecting details from the user. The right is a cart summary. As the visitor navigates through the various sections they will always remain on the page
• Left-hand side, should be responsible for collecting the visitors address details, shipping details and payment details

1. Please don’t use the standard approach to menus. No horizontal lists with drop-downs
2. Prefer no hard lines or borders around images, it should just flow and blend seamlessly
3. No use of icons, just prefer text
4. No blue, yellow, red, pink, purple colour schemes

I am open to inspiration from the designer.

It is important to me that the site works well on a mobile and doesn’t require the user to endlessly navigate between pages. Since most internet browsing and shopping is now carried out on a mobile device. I would hope that just from the menus alone, the user would be able to carry out functions such as checking out and performing cart management, without having to leave the page they are currently on. Which can be frustrating.

The first products that are to be sold on the website are wooden bowls, wooden spoons and wooden lights, but feel free to use any images of furniture if it helps to get your design across. Placeholder photos are fine for the design of the website. I am still prototyping my work, so won't have final pictures for this design competition