UI/UX, branding, and logo design for Farm Shine - a small family farm.
Brief
Farm Shine is a small family farm located in rural Chupungnyeong, South Korea. They specialize in premium shine muscats since 1970. Being a small business, they host their product sales via Naver, a popular small shop host like Amazon for South Korea.
They’d like to expand their clientele and brand by creating their own website for their product.
Challenge & Objective
Farm Shine is a single product shop that doesn’t have an ample amount of budgeting for branding and development. The objective was to create a brand image and website design that highlights their product while honoring the small family business values.
Empathize
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Research
There are many grape farms in Korea that sell directly to customers as well as markets. The competition is high. However, Farm Shine already has loyal customers that maintain their business. In order to reach more clients, branding and marketing were key.
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Client Needs
I met with the clients to discuss their business needs and wants for this project. They are very busy individuals who do not have the time to maintain a complicated website and shop. The simpler the UX is, the better for both the business and their customers.
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Customer Needs
Based on my research into their clientele, it was clear to me that purchasing from a single product shop should prioritize efficiency and transparency.
Demographic: ages 25-50, mostly female
Often purchased as gift and dessert for dinners. -
Build the brand
My clients were humble, hard-working people who had a passion for perfecting their product and excellent customer service. It was important for me to communicate this value in their branding. Trustworthy, friendly, and excellent quality.
About Farm Shine
Farm Shine is a family-owned grape farm located in rural Chupungnyeong, South Korea. The business was started in 1970 and is now operated by Mrs.Lee, an amazing, kind woman who not only lovingly tends to the grapes, she also feeds an army of stray cats who think she’s their mom.
Every morning, the Lees wake up at 5 am to tend to the grapes, carefully trimming each grape vine across acres of land. They’re an incredibly hard-working family that grow the best of the best.
Images I captured from my visit to Farm Shine in Chupungnyeong:
Optimum environment for perfect quarter sized grapes.
Mr.Lee
Incredibly sweet and stunning shine muscats.
Beautiful landscape of Chupungnyeong
Planning
The user task flow and site map are very simple due to a single product and client request to keep it minimal.
Business goals: Farm Shine already has pre-existing loyal customers that order directly from them.
Occasionally, younger generations find their shop on “Naver” and purchase. However, they would like to expand their clientele as their farm has expanded over the years. They want to brand themselves to target younger, modern generations as well as maintain their pre-existing customers.
Currently, small family farms in Korea are unlikely to have a modern brand or their own website.
The Landing Page
Single product shop - I designed the landing page to include all the information a customer would need to decrease the time spent on navigating the website.
Other pages
The checkout process needed to be as minimal and simple as possible. It was important for me to keep the amount of information requested to be similar to Naver to reduce the amount of mental load between the two options.
Mobile Prototype
Lessons Learned and Next Steps
I learned that every client has very specific needs and budgets. In order to meet their needs, we must first understand the ins and outs of the business. With that empathy, we can start planning for both the client and the customers.
I enjoyed this concept heavy project. It let me explore UI design more.
Next steps would start by implementing a Korean user researcher to understand their customer base.
From there we can assess the checkout process and user needs beyond the Naver shop.
Research stage needs to include marketing logistics, such as how a website would perform separate from Naver vs in conjunction to.