THE COVID FOOD ARCHIVE WEBSITE
UI: visual development | logo design | website mock | cross-functional collaboration
OVERVIEW
The Covid Food Archive is a digital archive that collects recipes and stories as a method of discovering how people’s relationship with food and eating habits changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Objective: Re-design the existing website where users can contribute recipes and stories about pandemic eating habits.
Audience: The general public—anyone who would like to share their own recipes and/or stories, and visitors exploring other contributor’s website submissions.
Role: As the UI designer on an interdisciplinary team, I led logo creation and the development of the look and feel of the website, and collaborated on page layout design.
LOOK AND FEEL
Concept: Create a homey look and feel that at the same time conveys a serious tone and explores imagery evocative of loneliness.
Solution: Images depicting recipes that are somewhat messy, and not picture-perfect reflects realistic homelife. It showcases the interest people took in sharing and connecting with family recipes and learning and experimenting with new recipes. Additionally, imagery of kitchen scenes devoid of people evoke the isolation experienced during quarantine, an important aspect that affected life during this time.
DESIGN
Logo: A clean, sans-serif typeface for the logo portrays the importance and significance of the content.
Website:
Maroon as the main color reflects a sense of richness – both in food and people’s stories surrounding food experiences and traditions.
The serif, accent typeface overlayed across the main images provides a classic, familiar, and inviting tone associated to the comforts of home.
The landing page was redesigned to allow visitors to easily understand the archive’s purpose and more quickly locate and navigate the main categories.
The project’s summary overview was placed at the beginning to provide relevant context, and the Contribute button made more prominent to encourage visitor participation.
The user contribution type (a story, recipe, or image) also has increased visibility through the use of images/text overlays helping visitors easily access and explore areas of interest.
Printed postcard promoting the website.