Mallard Hall

A Lauched Website (Ongoing)

I was sought out to produce a logo, website, and business cards for Mallard Hall, a newly renovated rental home near Louisville Kentucky with a rich history dating back to the 1790s. While in continuous communication with the client, I got a feel for the aesthetics, themes, and tones to convey, resulting in a truly representative brand identity and an elegant yet informational website.

Part 1: Logo and Brand Identity

My Process

Discovering the Client's Wants & Needs

To get started, I inquired about what kind of look and feel the client wanted to convey with the logo. She mentioned she would like a mallard incorporated into the design as well as a circular composition. It was important to her that the logo was naturalistic, but not rugged, and refined but not too modern.

Ideating: Logo Thumbnail Sketches

The Final Logo Design

The design we landed on utilizes tapered flowing lines, which gives a soft and natural feel. To balance the rustic association of the pond, cattails, and mallard, I designed with simple and clean silhouettes, breaking that up with some irregularity in the path of the outer circle. The font I chose nods to vintage serif fonts, bringing in that historic feel. There is a sense of grandeur with using all caps, but a humbleness by minimizing all but the first letters.

Part II: Website Design

Analyzing the Current Landscape

Rather than analyzing similar sites, I took a look at the rental sites Vrbo, Sotheby's, Airbnb, and Louisville Luxury Rentals (the host site). I looked at what information they don’t offer.

What could this site provide that other sites lack?

• The host site will have all photos, so I only include best bunch on this site
• Make it personal: include a history/about page
• Include a reviews section that is easily discoverable (competitor sites' review sections are hidden or distant)

Who Are the Users?

After discussing with the client what kinds of people her business will attract, I compiled the main commonalities into a user persona.

IA: Laying Out the Content Structure

• Concise homepage experience - introduction, offer details, showcase important features, highlight reviews, prompt booking or further exploration.
• Limit pages for less cluttered navigation; provide direction
• Include two touchpoints for contact (less clicking)
• Showcase only important rental details and highlight best features to facilitate decision making

Initial Wireframe Sketches

I started by sketching out my initial ideas for the pages. I aimed to create a home page that provided all the details of the rental and its features, a history page for those interested in the evolution of the property, a gallery page for more photos and visuals, and a contact page for quick access to reach out.

Clarifying and Refining Initial Ideas

These medium-fidelity wireframes flesh out the structure of the content for each page. I decided on columns and rows to showcase the rooms and features in order to fit more details into the viewport and highlight the individuality of each piece of information.

Adding Visual Flair

To ensure consistency across the design, I created a style tile that represented key traits of the brand, like tranquility and elegance. I opted for a legible serif font for headings and open-sans for paragraphs to balance accessibility and style.

In the high-fidelity mockups, I included the look and feel of my style tile and cleaned up my original ideas even more.

Gallery Page Redesign

After reconsideration of the gallery page's design, the client expressed that the amount of images the user has to scroll through may be overwhelming. A second iteration with more digestable layout was necessary. We decided on a "click-for-more" design, where each section of the house is initially represented by one image that could then be clicked on to reveal more images.

1. Side-by-Side Navigation

2. Thumbnail Navigation Horizontal

Nav with image thumbnails by section of house

3. Individual Galleries

No subnav; individual slide decks for each section of the house

4. Double Navigation

Top nav for floor level, subnav for sections within each level

5. Click for More

Gallery-style scroll with one image to represent each section of the house; click to see more photos

Initial Wix Build

Home

Gallery

Book

Part III: SEO Integrations

New Site Architecture

In order to enhance the site's discoverability, we aimed to expand the sitemap from four pages to 18. With a content document curated by an SEO expert, I will build out the additional pages by interpreting the information provided into user-friendly web pages.

Page Updates

Stay

This page has undergone expansion to include more keywords and rental options. A booking calendar still needs to be integrated.

History

Home

This page has been updated to include more keywords for SEO, better accessibility practices, more images with alt text, and links to internal pages.