Bringing Nordic tastes to stateside plates.
Chicago Importing Company offers highly sought-after Scandinavian and western European chocolates, candies, cookies, cheeses, beverages, seafood, specialty foods and more. The company came to us to launch a consumer-facing website for its top-selling in-house label, Lars Own, and its sibling brands.
The challenge
To spur sales of Lars Own products and those of its related brands without selling directly through their website.
The solution
Craft a sophisticated-looking digital experience that showcases the brands’ product selections and unique heritages, incorporating a map-based tool to show customers the nearest location for the item they are seeking.
Extending The Brand
Lars Own already had an established visual identity through its product packaging, so we wanted to capitalize on its familiarity with current customers as well as attract new ones.
Key brand assets such as the primary navy color and the Stockholm skyline graphic made their way into the website design, and there were text-styling considerations echoed as well.
Typography
Color Palette
Keeping it clean
When approaching the site design, we heavily utilized white backgrounds in keeping with a clean, open aesthetic that matches the imagery on the brand’s product packaging. We also kept the navigation as simple as possible, with numerous intuitively-placed links to the Where To Buy page in order to drive consumers to Lars Own’s retail partners.
Clear product navigation
As Lars Own’s products are the focal point of the web experience, we took great care to present them in an engaging, easy-to-digest format with multiple filtering options for quick access to what the user is seeking.
We also integrated products into multiple content areas on the site, including recipes and the brand pages, to provide numerous points of entry and illustrate the items’ many potential uses.
We’ll take you there
The Where To Buy functionality was key to our goal of driving product sales, so it was integrated into nearly every aspect of the new website.
Rather than presenting users with a static list of stores where Lars Own products are sold, we created a rich experience where availability is displayed based on the specific product the user is interested in. Proximity of the products is particularly important when considering that many of them are perishable.
Diving into the brands
The unique origins and heritage of the brands featured on the Lars Own website are part of what makes their products so in demand. We explore these details on the Brand Pages, emphasizing important facts with iconography and delving into cultural and national sources, as well as displaying the complete product selection and associated recipes for the label.
