Mudd Puddle Coffee Roasters & Cafe
Mudd Puddle Coffee Roasters & Cafe is a popular cafe located in New Paltz, NY within the town's Water Street Market. They serve sandwiches, baked goods, coffee, tea, and beer which is crafted at their family owned brewery.
Mudd Puddle is a quaint cafe, but their online presence does not reflect that. Their current website lacks the personality of the physical shop. The entire website is black and white, giving it a cold feeling-- and who likes their coffee cold?
Proposed Design Solution
A site rebrand for Mudd Puddle and its brewery, Yard Owl Brewery, to reflect the business' character and mission more effectively. I will introduce warm colors, a new menu design and order form, and new gift card designs.
Design Process
Visual Research
For their site update, I wanted the virtual aesthetic to align with their physical one. The cafe has a lot of warm tones, handwritten menus, and is located within a courtyard with lots of outdoor seating. I felt that using a clean sans serif typeface to contrast their handwritten items would be best. For a color palette I wanted to use the rich colors you found within the store.
Initial Sketches
I began this redesign by creating physical sketches of my possible UI. This allowed me to have a flexible starting point.
Initial Design
For my initial design, I was very on the nose with the coffee theme. I chose a color palette of brown tones, and a font pairing that didn't seem to hold its weight. I liked the layout of the UI itself, but my design choices weren't conveying the look I was looking for for this particular brand. I decided that a second iteration would be necessary.
Final Design
For my final design, I went with a much cleaner look, and a color palette that made the UI more readable. By scrapping the coffee theme, I was also able to make the inclusion of their brewery more cohesive.
Deliverables
View working prototype here
Main Takeaways and Future Goals
While designing this rebrand, I learned how important it is to capture the character of a business within their design. Mudd Puddle is a quiet and friendly place for the community to gather. I wanted the new website to emulate this cozy and inviting feeling.
With more time, I would go back and redo the sizing of my elements. They're quite large right now, so I would like to make them smaller so you could see more content on the screen before having to scroll down.
