Material Space
The client was wanting a new start after previously being under an umbrella brand. The products were incredibly high-end Italian stone and tiles. Therefore, the new brand and website had to personify this. Key steps of the project included; research, design, build and then launch. The entire process for the client was guided by us.
Concept to execution: brand and website
A fresh start.
The brand was the foundation for the entire project. Getting this just right was essential for how the audience would perceive the business, product and the offering. The research stage involved workshops, competitor research, and influences. These then lead into the conceptualisation of key parts of the brand including; logo, graphic elements, colours, fonts, imagery mood boards and how it would all tie together. From here, a cohesive brand story and identity was developed. Finally, this was all packaged up in a in depth brand guidelines and interactive asset pack for the client to start using.
The brand story and identity system
With the brand being finalised and launched it needed to have an equally distinguishable digital presence. The site had to serve as a digital version of their beautifully designed showrooms. Clean, minimal and inspiring by showing the customers how they could use the products to influence to their lifestyle. This all started out with researching and defining the personas of the site and how their digital journey would look. Images were key to this "inspiration" idea as they were heavily used throughout the user experience to develop this. The finer product details of size, use case, and colour were all also important. However, these were displayed more minimalistic which was a beautiful contrast with the images.
Brand and digital experience unity
Product catalogue and modules
An entire product library was to be held on the site. Key features that client wanted for their product catalogue were:
- Navigation: The users had to be able to easily browse products and categories as well as focus in on key words that related to the products they were wanting. Keywords and meta tags were used to achieve this which were visible in the back end and on the individual category and product pages.
- Product management: Products would come and go, so a robust CMS was needed to enable their team to constantly update and manage this catalogue. Tutorials were also run and recordings to ensure that the present and future team members would be able to stay on top of this.
- Template editing: Page templates were used in the build for streamlining the site development. However, these were built up of a number of custom modules that gave the client the ability to remove and add to the basic product template depending on the characteristics of the product.
Outcome and expectations
At the end of this process of the research, design, build and launch of the brand and digital experience the client was left ecstatic with the end result. They saw their 400+ product library come to life on the web in distinct Material Space look and feel. This was achieved by the cohesive brand identity that was developed for them in a way that fitted their expectations perfectly. The launch of the site lead to an upturn in sales, brand awareness and growth in market share in the high-end tile market place.
