Welcome to BHS Safari Company

The design of the BHS Safari website began with creating an immersive, elegant, and easy-to-navigate platform to showcase the luxury safari tours and travel services. The goal was to create an experience that reflected the brand's commitment to providing premium, nature-driven safari experiences while maintaining an intuitive and engaging interface.

Before diving into wireframing and visual design, in-depth research was conducted to understand BHS Safari’s target audience, competitors, and their brand values. This research informed:

Target Audience: Affluent travelers seeking luxury and adventure.

Competitor Analysis: Identifying trends in luxury safari websites, such as high-quality imagery, intuitive navigation, and strong storytelling elements.

Brand Alignment: The visual design needed to evoke feelings of adventure, nature, and luxury, with a refined and sophisticated tone.

Using Figma, wireframes were created to structure the content and layout for key pages on the website. This stage focused on:

Page Hierarchy: The wireframes prioritized the homepage, tour listing pages, booking forms, about page, and contact pages.

User Flow: The flow from one page to another was carefully mapped to ensure an intuitive journey from discovering the safari offerings to making a booking.

Content Structure: We ensured that essential elements such as the navigation menu, safari packages, featured experiences, and CTAs (Calls to Action) were placed prominently for easy access.

With the wireframes approved, high-fidelity designs were developed to bring the vision to life. The design emphasized a premium, nature-inspired aesthetic with a strong focus on:

Color Palette: Earthy tones such as rich greens, sandy beiges, and deep browns, inspired by the African savanna. These colors created a serene yet luxurious atmosphere, evoking the wilderness and natural landscapes.

Typography: Elegant serif fonts were chosen to reflect the sophistication of the brand, while modern sans-serif fonts were used for clarity and readability.

Imagery: Large, vibrant images of safaris, wildlife, and luxury travel experiences were integrated throughout the design. These high-quality images helped create an immersive experience, visually conveying the safari experience from the very first glance.

Interactive Prototypes: In Figma, interactive prototypes were created to test user interactions such as hover effects, scroll animations, and the flow of the booking process. These prototypes allowed stakeholders to experience the website firsthand, enabling feedback to refine the design further.

After presenting the high-fidelity designs and interactive prototypes, feedback from stakeholders and potential users was collected. This allowed for adjustments to be made to refine:

Navigation: Ensuring that menus were intuitive and easy to use, especially for mobile users.

Call-to-Action Buttons: Making sure the booking process was prominent and easy to find on each page.

Visual Hierarchy: Ensuring that the safari packages and featured experiences were highlighted, making it easier for users to browse and explore.

Once the design was finalized in Figma, it was time to bring the vision to life using Webflow. Webflow’s no-code platform provided the perfect environment for building the website, offering powerful tools for responsive design, animations, and CMS management.

The first step in the development phase was setting up the Webflow project to structure the website:

Site Layout: Using Webflow’s drag-and-drop interface, the structure of each page was built to reflect the high-fidelity design. This included creating grid layouts and defining spacing for optimal readability and aesthetic appeal.

Navigation: A sticky navigation bar was implemented for easy access to key pages like Safari Packages, About, and Bookings, ensuring that users could quickly access important information as they scrolled.

One of the core features of the website was the ability to easily update and manage dynamic content, such as safari packages and tour details. This was achieved by leveraging Webflow’s CMS:

Safari Packages: Using the CMS, dynamic content for each safari tour was created, which included details like pricing, itinerary, and images. This made it easy for the BHS Safari team to update and manage their offerings without needing developer assistance.

Booking Forms: Custom forms were created for clients to inquire about or book safari tours. These forms were linked directly to the CMS to collect and manage customer data seamlessly.

A key goal of the website was to ensure it was fully optimized for mobile devices, as many users would be browsing from smartphones or tablets:

Responsive Layouts: Webflow’s Flexbox and Grid systems were used to ensure that elements like images, text, and buttons would adjust based on screen size.

Mobile-First Design: The site was built with a mobile-first approach, meaning it was designed for smaller screens and then adapted for larger screens. This ensured that mobile users would have the best possible experience.

Image Optimization: Images were carefully optimized for mobile devices to reduce load times without sacrificing visual quality.

Optimizing the website for search engines was a top priority to ensure that BHS Safari could be easily discovered by potential clients:

SEO Tags & Meta Descriptions: Relevant meta tags, titles, and descriptions were added to every page to improve visibility on search engines.

Fast Loading Speed: Webflow’s code is lightweight, which helps reduce page load times. Additionally, images and assets were compressed to further optimize the site’s performance.

Alt Text for Images: Descriptive alt text was added to all images, which not only improves SEO but also enhances accessibility.

The safari experience is all about adventure and immersion, and the website needed to reflect that through interactive elements and animations:

Scroll Animations: As users scrolled through the page, animations were added to bring the content to life. For example, images of safaris and wildlife faded in, and text content revealed itself dynamically as the user navigated.

Hover Effects: Buttons and links had interactive hover states to engage users and encourage them to explore further.

Parallax Effects: Subtle parallax scrolling effects were implemented to add depth to the website and create a more dynamic experience.

A major feature of the site was the seamless booking experience:

Booking Forms: Custom forms were designed to allow users to easily inquire about or book a safari tour. These forms were connected to the Webflow CMS to collect data efficiently.

Tour Packages Display: Safari packages were displayed dynamically, with options for users to view detailed itineraries, check availability, and request quotes.

Once the development was complete, extensive testing was conducted to ensure the website worked perfectly across all platforms:

Cross-browser Testing: The site was tested across all major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) to ensure consistent functionality and design.

Device Testing: The website was tested on multiple devices (iPhone, Android, tablets, desktops) to ensure that the responsive design worked seamlessly across various screen sizes.

Functionality Testing: The booking forms, CMS updates, and interactive elements were all tested to make sure they functioned as expected.

After rigorous testing, the website was launched and made live. Post-launch, the site continued to receive maintenance and support to ensure everything ran smoothly:

Content Updates: The team at BHS Safari could easily update safari packages, add new tours, and update blog content using Webflow’s CMS.

Performance Monitoring: Regular monitoring of page speed, SEO performance, and user behavior ensured the website continued to provide a high-quality experience.

The final website successfully reflected BHS Safari's luxury brand, combining elegant design with smooth functionality. The combination of Figma for precise design and Webflow for flexible, powerful development created a seamless, engaging, and easy-to-manage website. The site not only showcased BHS Safari’s offerings but also provided a frictionless user experience, from browsing safari packages to completing bookings. The result was a sophisticated platform that aligns with BHS Safari's brand and enhances the experience for its clients.