Wanamaker's

The Wanamaker's brand is modern and refined, so the website design needed to reflect the sophistication of the brand while increasing its credibility, since it was new to the market.

The type selection and color scheme were chosen to be readable and reflect the brand values that Wanamaker's carries. Mid-century prestige was the order of the day. Tan orange with light cream leather, contrasted with a dark classical navy.

The main catalogue page was designed with active filters, optional grid, list and map views, and was optimized for reader scannability. Horse buyers need to track open and close times as well as prices with ease.

The single horse listing page needed to quickly and easily show all the most important pieces of information a buyer might need, weighted by importance.

Type, sex, breed and heritage were primary, along with photos, videos, a mapped location, a clear description, pedigree information and any race history. Alongside these key pieces of information, real time bid information is displayed in a fixed panel to the right. By showing these side by side the buyer can easily make a value judgement on a bid.

For auction power users and consigners we designed a quick modal shortlist of all the horses a buyer is watching, along with the ability to bid inline, available on any page of the site.

Interface elements were designed to be breathable, spacious and communicative. This was to counter the common online auction experience of cramped outdated UI with a calm, modest interface.

Email notifications were a critical part of the user experience, and so the email templates were hand coded to match the Wanamakers brand and contain just the right information needed for buyers and sellers, without overloading them.