A local craft bakery had a clear goal of building a digital presence, but lacked the roadmap to get there. Without a formal brief and a defined digital identity, my role was to translate their community-driven success into a structured, digital product from the ground up.
The project began in a state of high uncertainty. Since the team had never worked on a website before, I had to build their entire digital workflow from scratch. The challenge was to translate the warmth of a neighborhood's local bakery into a clean information architecture without losing that artisan flavor. I needed to design a product that felt as honest as their bread, yet remained simple enough for a non-technical team to manage on their own.
Through stakeholder interviews and a discovery questionnaire, I mapped the project’s scope, focused on the needs of local expats seeking a balance of quality and convenience. To anchor the design, I conducted a visual audit of the industry and developed moodboards. We settled on a "Contemporary Minimal" aesthetic - a style that balances a tactile**,** handcrafted feel with a clean minimalist identity.
Discovery Questionnaire
_(1).jpg)
Moodboards
I designed a cohesive presence across both web and mobile, recognizing that a seamless mobile experience was a critical requirement for my audience. Working within Squarespace, I moved quickly from low-fidelity sketches to rapid prototyping directly in the platform to pressure-test technical constraints early on.
Low-Fidelity Wireframing
To move beyond template constraints, I implemented custom CSS to refine the layout and address specific typographic gaps, particularly in optimizing Cyrillic-Latin bilingualism for maximum accessibility.
Squarespace Website Builder
Custom CSS Management
The final step was ensuring the project remained manageable long-term. I led a CMS training session to empower the team by providing the tools and documentation needed to update inventory and manage their digital presence independently.
I delivered a fully responsive platform engineered for long-term growth, moving beyond standard scaling to architect a dedicated mobile experience. The final result is a Human-Centered platform that preserves the bakery’s artisan identity while providing a high-performance, functional digital experience that bridges the gap between traditional craft and modern convenience.