DERUmarket Website Design

DERUmarket is a locally-sourced, organic, and seasonal restaurant in Kirkland, WA. They utilize beautiful imagery from Ryan Flynn Photography, but their brand and site needed an update that would reflect the incredible food they create.

Duration: 2 weeks
Roles: Branding | Web Design | Web Development
Tools: Photoshop | WordPress | Divi

Problem

In an increasingly digital world, having an optimized website is crucial. DERUmarket’s website could benefit from improved design to fix SEO issues, an updated look, and a revitalization of their branding.

Goal

As a local business, a redesigned website would be an invaluable tool to increase traffic to the restaurant as well as drive customers to the catering side of the company. Additionally, the brand of the company needs to be further developed to fully match the beautiful food DERU produces.

Solution

DERUmarket is a company that strives to engage with it’s community through sourcing the local, organic products, so we created a website that expresses that mission and helps customers relate to the restaurant on a higher level. Their brand was also reworked from a dark, black-and-white aesthetic to one that is light, has life, and feels more refined.

Branding Culinary Excellence

While DERU had a clear brand, we pushed it to turn it into something further refined that reflects the great food they produce every day.

Developing an Aesthetic

Initially, the brand for the restaurant consisted of one font, gorgeous photography, and a dark, black-and-white color scheme. This was a great start, but the aesthetic lacked a personality that made DERU feel unique.

In order to best represent the design of the restaurant space and the local, organic food there, we reworked the look and feel of the brand. The revitalized brand is lighter, incorporates more white space to highlight the impressive imagery, and brings colors in that complement the food.

Building upon a Brand

While we wanted to update DERUmarket’s brand, it was built upon a strong foundation. The typeface they selected for their logo and use for text on their website and menu is bold and matches the modern style they have.

What was missing was the elegance present in the food, so we used their san serif typeface for headers and paired it with a refined serif font for body text. The combination created a depth to their identity that wouldn’t be possible with just the single typeface.

The Digital Experience

After the brand was revitalized, the website was the next customer touchpoint that needed work. DERU is a small business and, as such, its website is key to bringing in new customers.

Original Website