In taking over a Berkeley institution, new owners Julia and Sabra needed to balance the legacy of the beloved Nabolom Bakery and Pizzeria while creating a new, vibrant and personal business. Before long, they realized that their website had outlived its original purpose and desperately needed a redesign both for the customers seeking information and for the owners keeping the site content up to date.

the ask

Two important issues needed to be resolved. The first was the content was disorganized and confusing for visitors to the site. The second, the site had to be easily updated because of the constantly evolving content: rotating daily pizza menus, varying hours, seasonal bakery items, ingredients and various information to reduce the number of disruptive telephone inquiries.  Moreover, I wanted to convey Julia and Sabra’s devotion to fine craftsmanship, their knowledge and dedication to using premium quality ingredients, as well as their personalities, as the strong, warm, humor-filled, quirky, brilliant women that they are.

the SOLUTION

The website first and foremost had to become much more user-centered, with the homepage addressing most of the immediate needs of the customer. Because there was a substantial amount of information that had to be conveyed in a way that was quickly and easily understood, the homepage's hierarchy needed to be deft. By using an illustration of the bakery’s facade, I was able to integrate the daily pizza menu, the bakery/pizza hours, location, and date. As a bonus, this layout emulated an in-person visit to Nabolom, creating an experiential component that felt welcoming with a bit of charm.

The internal pages of the site were reserved for more detailed information: weekly hours, weekly pizza menus, bakery items and ingredients, FAQs, and contact information. Because of the volume of content, I kept these pages as clean and simple as possible, with small design details to lend character and warmth to the site. Illustrations from vintage cookbooks, playful typography, and pops of sassy hot pink as well as large swaths of bakery-box soft pink, balanced out the use of white space and copy.

Working with a web developer, it quickly became evident that using a backend database to update the daily information would be much easier for the owners than editing the web pages directly each day. Together, we designed a database to track all of the dynamic content. The site pulls in all of the relevant information for the current date automatically, leaving the pages themselves untouched. As a result, the site is always up to date and there is no risk of breaking the layout.

Role: Designer
scope: website design