Website Study: The Local Palate
Site Navigation
The Local Palate is very easy to navigate. It is a very clean layout with pages identified at the top, and social media icons in the top right-hand corner. As you scroll down subsections are identified with font size and light grey horizontal lines. The company’s information and call to action of subscribing to the magazine are seen at the bottom of the homepage. This CTA is also seen on the top right side tab with a pop-out image. Pages are well organized and it is easy to get to the index from other pages. Their layout consistently places each of their topics at the top regardless of what page you are on, and consistently indicates the home page at the top left-hand corner with a black background button with white text, instead of a white background with black text, which indicates the magazine’s subsections.
Typography & Colour
The chosen type is very legible and readable. It is clear that the designer of the website understood that smaller and/or lighter text should be in a type that was more stylized, while larger and/or bolder type should be in a more simple, block style. They chose very simple, clear visual breaks.
Usually, it is difficult to determine the colour scheme or tone of a food site because the topics of the images can be very neutral or very colourful. Colours are organized, as seen consistently in their understanding of visual space. They use a good balance of white to the colours of a photo. The overall tones of the photos are warm, light, and inviting. There is a “clean modern” aesthetic to the whole site. It is meant to make the viewer want to make a recipe or read the article/information, each picture is “picture perfect,” but not visually busy because of the balancing aspect of the clean white, grey, and black layout. Their online content sells to the viewer to subscribe to their digital magazine easily. It is not meant to look like it was made in someone’s home like Chatelaine magazine, which usually includes blurred props in the background seen of its images; rather this is something the viewer will want to eat/make.
Overall Design/Content
The overall design of the site is very good; there are a lot of images that are visually broken up with white space and text. The overall design of the site takes an Instagram approach, cropping pictures into squares, minimal text, and encouraged social media sharing throughout, with icons that appear when your mouse goes over a specific area. The little, yet consistent design and detail of the site enhances the content because food images often transmit a lot of visual information. They appeal to our cravings to eat, make something delicious, or go somewhere to eat, and in food social media “less is more”. Close-up, high resolution/very detailed images with lots of white space will capture a viewers attention more so than the opposite. The style of the site is very editorial, vibrant, and clean. Understandably, searching for food images or curating content for a food based magazine is difficult, because there are so many details that can easily make your choice inconsistent with the content you are curating/creating.