As a doughnut fusion restaurant, I chose to review a website that directly competes, a popular doughnut restaurant in Chicago, Illinois: Glazed and Infused. The website’s address is https://www.goglazed.com/index.php. The website immediately stood out to me, it’s simple but vibrant and definitely was designed well. The Glazed and Infused Website uses a lot of mediums together: illustration, type, and photography within the same page. In other words, there’s a lot to look at.
Upon first looking at the website, there is a blatant color scheme which successfully ties the elements of the page together. The prominent color of the website is a bright orange, which creates cohesion and instills brand recognition. Otherwise the color palette is cream and black, which complement and calm down the vibrancy of the orange. There is an interesting texture to the background color, which gives it a vintage paper feel. This in combination with sketchy illustrations and detailed photographic textures creates a retro yet modern mood to the website. I think that the website does a good job to attract a certain audience.
The layout and navigation of the website are fairly standard. The homepage draws you into a button labeled “Order Here” which takes you to the menu page. The rest of the homepage is general information about the restaurant. Otherwise there is a navigation bar near the top of the website which lists important categories like menu, locations, etc. Hovering over these aspects of the navigation bar places an orange bar over the text, and upon clicking it leads you to another page with information and photography. Photography is a major aspect of the website’s layout and uses large photographs of the restaurant and doughnuts to head each page. The photography is great and looks very appealing; I think that using large, indulgent photographs was a wise decision to entice viewers to purchase their food.
Everything is fairly well organized apart from feeling a bit cluttered. One thing I did not like about the website is a panel at the bottom of the page which has several, but not all of the same buttons as the top navigation bar. I do not like that you cannot access all elements easily from one navigation bar alone; for instance, the social media icons are only found at the bottom of the page. A lot of the same information is repeated and I feel as though the website needs to be more streamline and simple. Overall, the website had a fairly straightforward layout, but a lot of the information and pages were overwhelming with content.
In comparison to my restaurant’s page I think it competes well. Both websites use a selective color palette and a vibrant, retro appeal. I think what will make our website stand out is its more modern take on a classic food item. The one-page website with a streamline design and minimal information will make it easier for the viewer to be guided through content.