Image Credit : Nightjar
Project Overview
Discovered Wildfoods are on a mission to bring ethically harvested wild game meats to popularity in Australia.
A true option for the ‘conscious carnivore’, this system of farming harvests animals considered pests, thus Discovered Wildfoods opens up the availability of high protein, low fat wild game to a wider group of Australians, while protecting native habitats, as well as supporting rural communities.
Having recently undergone a rebrand, Discovered Wildfoods were ready to share this story to a wider audience and needed a website as impressive as their mission - to make positive change for our health, our communities and our planet.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Bonnie MacTavish - Head of Experience Strategy
Ahmed Meer - Head of Design Technology
Christine Sultana - Head of Operations
Evan Bohringer - Senior Designer
Max Celima - Fullstack Developer
Brent McDowell - Infrastructure Engineer
Beau Bradburn - Producer
Project Brief
Discovered Wildfoods came to us with a big story to be told and an infectious energy for doing their part to improve the health of our planet - and the health of Australians. The vegan movement is gaining global popularity but there’s part of the picture that’s missing and wildfoods remain little known and little understood.
The purpose of the site was to introduce wild Sambar venison to three key target audiences, and explain why what we put on our plate matters to the planet. Firstly, the ‘conscious carnivore’, interested in sustainability, shopping responsibly, and helping local businesses thrive. Secondly, we needed to inspire chefs and restaurateurs, proposing sustainable venison and game meats as a tasty and responsible addition to their menus. A third audience, retailers (restaurants, grocery, distributors) who are considering stocking the products but may need to understand the benefits of wildfoods.
Project Need
Wild game is little understood so the site needed to take the user on a journey to discover exactly what the fuss is about. The stories of sustainability, health and taste needed to be told with equal focus.
The challenge was to deliver an immersive but truly flexible and modular design system that could scale as the business grew, within the time we had available. Wanting to ensure we executed to the high Nightjar standard we hold ourselves to, we invested further time on our side to deliver a silky smooth experience that everyone on the team is very proud of.
eComm was also a goal of the site from the beginning, so our UX and design phases took this into account, despite the budget for launch only allowing a finite number of features. However, to make e-Comm achievable for Discovered, we delivered the cart functionality post-launch, as part of a secondary sprint once they had earned some ROI on their initial investment.
User Experience
Wild Game Resources Australia had seen the evolution in the marketplace to more sustainable products and were poised to meet these needs with their wild Sambar venison product.
In terms of the digital user experience, the brief was centred on storytelling so the navigation was intentionally kept simple, with the user enticed to scroll through the homepage, rich in imagery and copy, where the story about ethically harvested wild game comes to life. As the user engages with the story we lead them into the next chapter.
A top ‘Menu’ nav button reveals Mission, Products, Recipes and Shop, in a decluttered overlay with plenty of negative space and textures from their photography suite.
We introduced a progress indicator on the right hand side of the homepage so the user could see their place in the story, and it also serves to strengthen the narrative element of the experience, with each section appearing as a ‘chapter’.
The frontend technology is delivered as server side rendered ReactJS, and for the backend we used the Sanity CMS. A modern, headless approach, very different from the monolithic approaches of old, allows us to build for speed, scale, reliability, and ease of use for our partners to maintain in the future.
Project Marketing
With powerful and emotive imagery, we let the brand do the talking. Our approach was to break the content down into ‘chapters’ and introduce exploratory illustrations and devices to hold the reader's attention and help them follow the journey.
Motion design was a key factor in immersing the reader into the narrative. We emphasised the natural, premium and rich tones through design, and enabled the story to evolve through immersive parallax effects and subtle animations and transitions. Currently the site is enjoying high dwell time (over 4 minutes) as users immerse themselves.
e-Comm was always going to be a core element of the site, and with this in mind we ensured the story (and the mouth-watering recipes) motivated the user down the purchase funnel. The cart is one of only two items in the nav - and when an empty cart is clicked, we guide potential purchasers to the shop.
The Discovered Wildfoods site was awarded both the prestigious Awwwards Site of the Day, as well as FWA of the Day. It has also been nominated amongst the best sites on the internet for the upcoming Webby awards, in the Sustainability & Environment category.
Project Privacy
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Digital - Food & Drink
Food & drink - essential to us all. We all engage with sites and apps with a food or drink focus be that restaurant guides, cooking sites, purchasing produce or nutritional advice.
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