Redesigning Starbucks Reserve
Visually redesign Starbucks Reserve™ website towards a luxury, delicate and premium brand to discover specialty coffee
Role
This is a personal project that I did to challenge myself as an Visual/UI Designer.
Timeline
Feb – Mar 2023
Tools
Figma
Scope
Visual/UI Design
Overview
This project aimed to redesign Starbucks Reserve™ website towards a luxury, delicate and premium branding while conveying their target as a place to discover specialty coffee.
This goal is achieved by:
- Getting inspirations from luxury restaurant menus and magazine-driven style
- Conveying the premium, elegant, coffee-focused look and feel using dark color palettes and serif font as headings
- Experimenting going out of normal grid style to give a modern feel
Design goals
Starbucks Reserve™ positions itself in the market as a specialty coffee place with “a selection of the rarest, most extraordinary coffees” (source: Starbucks Reserve™ website). However, the current Starbucks Reserve™ website is going towards promoting it as a lifestyle coffee shop with food, pastries and merchandises rather than focus on coffee. The goals are to:
- Rebrand Starbucks Reserve™ towards a premium, delicate and luxury experience
- Promote Starbucks Reserve™ as a place to discover specialty coffee
- Target coffee enthusiasts who are interested in coffee knowledge
Current website analysis
In general, the website appears well-designed and tidy, featuring ample white space and images arranged in a cohesive style.
However:
- In terms of layout: The website does not have a clear separation between sections, nor does it have a clear headings for each section
- In terms of branding: The website is not doing good to convey their brand positioning of a specialty coffee place but more like a lifestyle coffee shop with images of pastries, merchandises, wines, cities, etc.
- In terms of style: The usage of white background for the overall website and the lack of color scheme (no obvious primary/secondary colors) makes it lack of highlights and focal points
Experiments
I experimented 3 design aspects:
- Layout
- Colors
- Fonts
Experiment #1
Layout
Experiment #2
Colors
Experiment #3
Fonts
Iterations
After experimenting different design elements, I put all of them into a visual interface with various combinations. During the time period of 1 month, I got several rounds of feedback and design modification. The main approach was to show the before and after design without providing any rationales to gather subjective feelings towards the new version. Using this approach, I was able to see if the redesign was able to bring the desired mood and feel and avoid bias.
How I improved my opening section
How I improved my home page section
