Client

Nomad Ventures

Tools

Adobe Xd, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

Role

UX and Visual designer

Timeline

3 weeks

Journey

Tackling Nomad Ventures’ site brand and site design meant paying homage to the history that this 40+-year-old brand carries while modernizing it for the 2021 user. At the time of this redesign, the site had an expired countdown of the new site launch, leaving me to explore the Internet Archives of this domain. The colorful blue, green, and yellow logo is the logo that the shop uses today. While it has character and story, it doesn’t scale very well when used in small format cases and is too complex to truly be considered a logo. Below the current logo, you can see a few iterations I worked with. Ultimately deciding on the larger, wordmark as the primary logo.

While searching through the Internet Archives, I found that the site lacked modernity, but at its core was the culmination of entrepreneurial brilliance that deserved an updated twist. Seeing that the company was born and bred in Southern California culture, the brand identity and site feel needed to reflect that.

The consumer base of this store consists of folks from Temecula, Joshua Tree, Idyllwild, and Escondido - all Southern California cities. In the logo design, I wanted to appeal to the youthful energy that a nomadic lifestyle may attract and provide some mystique that adventures (or ventures) into the backcountry may bring. The iconic mountain from their original logo had to make an appearance as a crest in the ‘O’ of nomad.

Solution

I conducted a competitive analysis of other gear retailers like Backcountry, REI, Sports Basement, along with other online marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace and Depop. I also explored the culture of ‘gearheads’. Within each sport, from cycling to climbing, folks are loyal to their gear company. Folks await the latest Altra drop, the next Patagonia Black Hole duffle release, or the next La Sportiva climbing shoe model.

With the goal of integrating brand loyalty as a primary facet of the user experience, I chose to highlight the landing page, the flow through the ‘Background’ and ‘About’ pages, and the hierarchy of text on product listings. You can see the medium-fidelity mock-up below.

Landing Pages

The goal with these pages was to highlight the most important information (sales, new gear, etc.) and bolster the brand identity. Landing pages for consumer goods are primary opportunities to engage a user and convert them to a potential sale. I wanted to brand these pages with the outdoors-inspired, bold colors of the new Nomad Venture palette, to entice users to click through to the hottest sale or featured product.

‘Background’ and ‘About’ Page Flows

With a company that has a rich history like Nomad Ventures, I wanted the ‘Background’ and ‘About’ page flow to reflect the importance of the company’s background. Each page features rich and easy-to-digest informational panels along with giving the user another reminder of brand colors and imagery.

Hierarchy of Product Listings

A crucial part of the user experience for an online retailer is the product listing. As such, in my research across various retailers, I wanted to highlight the following pieces of information: (a) Brand, (b) Color Variants, (c) Sizes, (d) Price, (e) Discounts. Looking at the outdoor gear sector revealed cult followings for various brands. This finding led me to highlight the brand as the primary piece of information, followed by the item name, price, and discounts.