Crack’d Kitchen
Serving Up a Fresh Online Experience with Flavor and Flair
Crack'd Kitchen is a modern dining concept that focuses on delivering high-quality, chef-driven meals made from fresh, locally sourced ingredients. Specializing in breakfast, brunch, and lunch, Crack'd Kitchen offers a variety of innovative, flavorful dishes, from gourmet egg sandwiches to creative bowls and salads. The restaurant aims to create a fast-casual experience with a focus on community, sustainability, and bold, unforgettable flavors.
Client
Crack'd Kitchen
Completed
2023
Role
Web Design | Lead Designer
Project Link
The Mission
The mission for this project was to use Crack'd Kitchen's refreshed branding to revamp their website, creating a more cohesive, branded, and seamless online experience. The goal was to align the site’s design and functionality with their updated visual identity, ensuring that every aspect of the user journey reflected the bold, modern, and community-focused essence of the brand. This included enhancing the user interface, improving navigation, and integrating the new branding elements for a more unified digital presence.
Conceptualization
The conceptualization process began with creating a site map to establish the structure and organization of Crack'd Kitchen’s revamped website. This step was crucial in defining the flow and hierarchy of the pages to ensure a smooth user experience. Once the site map was finalized, I moved on to developing Low-Fidelity wireframes, focusing on the layout and content for each page. These wireframes served as a blueprint for the website's design, helping to visualize how the refreshed branding and content would come together in a cohesive, user-friendly way.
Medium Fidelity
Building on the sketches derived from the site map, medium-fidelity wireframes were created to provide a more detailed representation of the website's structure and layout. These wireframes were presented to the stakeholders to ensure that the design aligned with their vision for the project. This step was essential in solidifying the direction of the website before moving on to the final design phase.
Style Guide
Before diving into the final designs, a comprehensive style guide was created to establish the visual language for Crack'd Kitchen's website. This guide included specifications for typography, color palettes, and buttons, ensuring consistency across all pages. This foundational step was crucial for ensuring that the final designs would not only be visually appealing but also reflect the identity and values of Crack'd Kitchen.
Implementation
The next step in the process involved creating high-fidelity designs that incorporated all the previous elements and assets developed throughout the project. Using the established style guide, wireframes, and branding components, the focus was on delivering a visually rich and cohesive website for Crack'd Kitchen. These high-fidelity designs provided a detailed and polished representation of the final product, showcasing the updated typography, color palette, and imagery in a way that enhanced the user experience.
A Playful and Engaging Online Experience!
The new site was designed to leverage Crack'd Kitchen's refreshed branding to its fullest potential, incorporating a variety of branded elements throughout the layout. The design features interactive components that enhance user engagement, along with playful touches and small Easter eggs that reflect the brand's vibrant aesthetic and lighthearted tone. These elements work together to create an immersive online experience, inviting visitors to explore and connect with the brand while showcasing its commitment to creativity and community.
Crack Open the Fun
The main navigation of the new site features a unique and interactive floating design that adds a playful touch to the user experience. Highlighted by a yolk-like element as the "Order Now" button, this innovative approach draws attention while enhancing usability. Additionally, the navigation incorporates an eggshell to the hamburger menu that opens to reveal a drawer navigation filled with more branded elements, including a patterned background and a cracked edge.
Keeping the Flavor Front and Center!
The new spotlight banner was designed to keep a featured dish front and center on the homepage, aligning with the client’s request for a dynamic way to showcase their offerings. This eye-catching element sticks to the bottom of the viewport, displaying a vibrant image of the dish, its name, and a brief description, along with a button that invites users to view the menu. To ensure flexibility, this feature is easily customizable on the backend, allowing the client to update the dish at any time, keeping the site fresh and engaging for returning visitors.
Hop on the Yolkswagon
The most dynamic and interactive section of the site is the Yolkswagon, Crack'd Kitchen's catering truck, prominently featured on both the homepage and its dedicated page. This engaging area includes eggshell lamps, reminiscent of those used in their physical locations, which users can turn on or off to change the background of the section. A carousel showcases vibrant images of the Yolkswagon in action, along with a convenient button for booking. This interactive experience captures the brand's essence while inviting users to engage with the catering service in a fun and memorable way.
Welcome to Hatch'd!
Hatch’d is subbrand of Crack'd Kitchen that features a new and simplified menu. To create a dedicated page for Hatch'd, we updated the branding elements, ensuring that colors and fonts aligned with the fresh identity of this subbrand. This thoughtful approach maintains the overall cohesion of Crack'd Kitchen while giving Hatch'd its own unique flavor, allowing customers to easily navigate and enjoy the streamlined menu offerings.
The Gold Standard
This website design was submitted to the Marcom Awards in 2023, where it proudly won a Gold Award in the Creativity and Design category. This recognition highlights the exceptional effort put into crafting a visually stunning and user-friendly online experience for Crack'd Kitchen, showcasing the successful blend of innovative design and branding that resonates with the target audience.