Uplift Interiors is a property styling business based in Sydney. The purpose of the website was to create a stylish canvas in order to showcase various styled spaces, allowing potential clients and homeowners to view and understand the design direction of the business.
The initial problem of the original site was in the archaic layout which failed to interest potential clients. This came through a bland organisation of elements, projects images and information. The redesign of the website focused on a highlight of strong project images and a play with typography to create overall visual interest.
Many similar businesses use a portfolio style website in order to showcase their work. In order to find strong examples of such, I filtered through many local property styling websites as well as through architectural/interior design portfolio sites. This was mostly accomplished through sites such as awwwards.com.
Some points of interest from a UI/UX standpoint include:
Sites analysed (from top to bottom)
henninglarsen.com
www.mizzi.co
etrotextiles.etro.com
coevalstudio.com
thepropertystylist.com.au
The initial intended user flow of the site would follow 4 main sections, About, Services, Portfolio and Contact. Initially these sections would be separated and directed to via header link, but through further iteration were connected in a long hero page. This aims to expose the customer to the purpose and goal of Uplift Interiors whilst creating engagement through a unique and personable overall layout. This is akin to many of the more artisanal style websites exampled above, as well as
The initial prototypes focused on establishing a sense of artistry, professionalism and elegance through typography, colour choice and layout of elements.
The typography of the site revolves around varying sizes and weights to playfully articulate the main purpose of the business, which is the storytelling of it’s property styling. The main fonts used are:
The colour choices reflect the modernity of Uplift Interior’s property styling design, utilising a monotone palette, consisting of mainly muted greys, whites and browns. These colour choices intends to create a feeling of comfort and coziness which mirror the sense created within Uplift’s home styling, as seen in the furniture and accessory patterns.
White space is also used between elements to allow for each section to feel breathable whilst increasing the digestibility of every image and text paragraph.
Changes from the additional prototyping involved creating a more engaging typographical layout through vastly varied sizes and placement of quotes and paragraphs. As well as this, images are placed alongside text in a dynamic and energetic manner. For the portfolio section, images are given a large space to highlight individual projects. Pages for individual projects have images cropped to focus on specific styling choices of the interior spaces.
Animated elements are used throughout each section to give personality and a dynamic feel to the site. Parallax movement on images, marquee text movement and lottie vector scroll animation are some examples of features implemented on the site.
From top to bottom:
Lottie vector scroll animation
About section
Service section
Project List
Example project page
The final wireframes of the site follows a flow from the main page in the order of: About, Services, Selected Projects and Contact. Redirect links in the page allow the customer to view the full project list and individual projects. Each page ends in a call to action contact section which directs to a simple form.
