Löyly Website Redesign

 

 

We’re thrilled to share with you our latest website redesign. Löyly is a breathtaking Scandinavian-inspired sauna in Southeast Portland. When proprietor Jessica Kelso approached us to redesign the website for her boutique, we couldn’t have been more excited. (We’ve known Jessica for years and have always admired her style.) Löyly is a beautiful space  and it’s clear from the care that went into its design that she is very passionate about what she’s doing there. We wanted to bring that relaxing vibe and passion to her website.

Our initial conversation uncovered a number of goals.  Löyly was getting frequent phone call asking a variety of questions that could have been answered much more quickly by the website. (Their visitors weren’t just looking on their computers for the information they needed – they were often on the go and looking for facts quickly on their phone.) We crafted a design with a clean layout that incorporates all the redesign objectives while maintaining a relaxing design aesthetic.

As with all of our current projects, we painstakingly insist on several best practices. First, the site must convey the experience to the visitors. After five minutes on the website, we want you to know what to expect, and why this place is so special. Second, our sites must be mobile-friendly. This fit in well with Jessica’s goals. Third, we demand sublime, beyond-pixel-perfect quality. Load the site on your “retina” MacBook or iPad, and you’ll see what we mean. It looks better than a printed page.

The site is integrated with their booking system, and also features a gift certificate system we’ve integrated with their WordPress. And being WordPress, the site is entirely updateable by the client. There’s hardly anything they can’t change, if they need to. That’s another big win for web fonts and browser style sheets.

And, for the user on the go, the mobile Löyly website is fast, easy to navigate and has all of the important information at your finger tips. Scheduling a massage or facial has never been easier.

Finally, there are a couple of little details we’d like to draw your attention to. The branch graphic in the upper left? Yep, it animates just a bit, every time you load a page! Try resizing your browser to its narrowest, as if you were on a phone. Notice how the main menu collapses into an intuitive widget, and the critical information (address, phone, and so on) becomes more easily accessible. This is the first thing you see on a phone, and it’s a big win for folks in a hurry.

All these little details add up to a site we’re incredibly proud of. We hope you like it as much as we do.

Kandace Brigleb

Producer, co-founder of Needmore. Currently residing on the left coast.