One-of-a-kind expression with respect of imagery
Challenge
Create a new web that meets Fuzzy Logic Press’ larger target group, and broadens the comany’s scope of services. It should include a possibility of ordering services or products. With the outcome of generating more business.
My role
Ui Designer, Art Director, Animator
Core skills
Web design, Typography, Branding, Copy and text production
Below: Sketches for mobile, midfi. Later, the team skipped the shop-function because of it not being really necessary, therefore increasing the cognitive load. Instead, later versions were built with an interactive quote simulator instead.
Overview
Fuzzy Logic Press is a publishing house focusing on artist books and risoprints. With the motto “Adventures in print and beyond” the company wants to be flexible in which artistic practices it provides services in. I was asked to create a site with functions such as ordering prints, postproduction and publications, mainly for FLP’s local customers. The new website should also be a better representation of the companys profile within in the international, informal, riso printing community.
Project objectives
Include a quote form
include several new functions such as education about risography,
product details of our
services,
prices,
workshops
more extensive gallery of publications.
generate more business
include several new functions such as education about risography,
product details of our
services,
prices,
workshops
more extensive gallery of publications.
generate more business
Personas
FLP sees, based on research, a scope of broadening their target group. Therefore I created two new personas (Anna and Patrik) on top of revising the existing two (Emil and Oscar).
Below: Personas for Fuzzy Logic Press' broadened target audience.
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Above: CJM as-is identifying possibilities of meeting business' goals.
Pains
- Not understanding the riso techique.
- Having no overview of prices and available services.
- Difficulty setting up printfiles without help.
- Not knowing enough about Fuzzy Logic Press Riso studio and its’ USP.
Gains
- Information on and booking of riso workshops.
- Being in control over costs.
- Possibility of saving time and money by having effective file set up guidelines.
- Getting examples of available colours and other’s visual results.
- Invitation to PIY (print it yourself) option.
Market research and ideations
The existing website only had a presentation of FLP's publications for sale. To meet the brief and provide a new site that provide a lot more funtions, I started with a market research to map out the competitors’ functions and solutions. Especially the function of ordering printing services, was a high risk assumption that needed to be worked through. Feasibility and business value in relation to predicted traffic had to balance. Many of the international competitors provided calculators for printing costs, based on alogrithms, that would not be economical in this project. Instead, the decision was made to provide digital quote and order forms, leaving room for an web shop in the coming years.
Below: Benchmarking.
Below: User flows for ordering publications (left) and ordering printing (right).
Below: Wireframes and lofi mockups
Below: Discarded designs
Design
Accessability
In terms of accessability, I was especially asked to make a site with special focus on “no distractions”. The page load should be as straightforward as possible with very subtle effects with on user interactions and there should be no animations. There would be no “open in new tab”, neither any long scrolling pages.
Style guide
Since one of Fuzzy Logic Press USPs is its’ knowledge in printing photographic pictures, I wanted to make room for showing (off) printed examples. The first design iterations had abstract prints with overlays as background. My customer asked me to also make visual reference to design history in terms of print related iconography, wherefor the final design had different coloured paper-icons as backgrounds. Since being rather simple, the site would still be respectful of all different image styles that could appear in its content. The brief was to make a site that was flexible enough to be able to house other services FLP possibly could offer in the future. At the moment, the four pillars of the website is: FLP core=yellow (index, about and contact pages); riso studio=teal (print shop, technicalities, Print-It-Yourself; publications=pink; workshops=burgundy.
One of the riso techniques characteristics is its‚ vibrant coulours. To use the inc colours’ hex values as styles came natural, to increase recognition among the users.
One of the riso techniques characteristics is its‚ vibrant coulours. To use the inc colours’ hex values as styles came natural, to increase recognition among the users.
Below: Desktop midfi mockup, this design is close to the design of the finished product. Both the shop function and the intro paragraphs were removed at the next stage of the process.
Below: Exerpt from design system.
reflections
A one-woman-show
Things to do differently
FLP is a small startup, and for a number of reasons not very mature in its’ organisation. In addition to that, the ux/ui team on this project consisted only of one. These two reasons gave som shortages that in hindsight, I would try to avoid. Firstly, the time spent on research was short. Secondly, there was no user testing on the rapid prototypes. We had to start working early to meet the tight deadline (the company needed a website up and running quickly).
Next steps
Because of the limitations mentioned above, we decided to consider a few months after publicising the website, an iteration period.
Above: 2 versions of interim landing pages, client asking for retro feel, simple animations illustrating re-buildning or riso-printing. The right, with a print running through a riso-drum was used.
