A new, elegant brand for top-notch matchmaking by Virginia Manzi 🪬A new, elegant brand for top-notch matchmaking by Virginia Manzi 🪬

A new, elegant brand for top-notch matchmaking

Virginia Manzi 🪬

Art Director

UX Designer

UI Designer

Figma

Google Analytics

Hotjar

The Challenge

For their 30th anniversary, It’s Just Lunch was looking to completely revamp their existing website and branding to celebrate the occasion.

They were open to all sorts of suggestions for improving the branding and user experience. The main challenge was that they utilized a franchise model and needed to run all changes by their franchisees to make sure everyone was on board with the new direction

The Goal

Refresh the logo, streamline the user flows to improve conversions, optimize the management of the franchisees’ websites, modernize the look and feel.

The Solution

A logo refresh to modernize the brand while keeping its recognizability. A smarter, SEO-oriented organization of the back-end database to better manage the franchisees’ websites. A full-screen experience on the website with a new look, feel, and messaging.

Drawing inspiration from competitors, implementing SEO strategies

The Research

The research mainly consisted of a robust analysis of the It’s Just Lunch competitors. I took a look at what was working, what wasn’t, and how the flows could be improved.

It’s Just Lunch was also planning on applying heavy SEO strategies. The structure of the websites (franchisees included) needed to respect the intricacies of key word implementation to achieve this goal.

The Takeaways

It was needed to create a brand new Information Architecture (site maps & database pages organization) and experiment with user flows to get a good understanding of what the redesigned site would look like.

I simplified the flow in a manner that allowed users to reach conversion with 3 clicks only.

Understanding our competitors

Curated an in-depth benchmark in collaboration with stakeholders and franchisees to gain insight into what could possibly work and what to avoid.

From landing to conversion in 3 clicks

Designed the new, slim site structure so the user lands on the website, reads key information, and contacts the matchmakers. The structure was trimmed down to ensure quick conversion.

Refreshing a 30-year- old brand

Visual Updates

It’s Just Lunch was open to exploring new brand identities by changing the logo and updating the visuals across the website.

In the end, the recognizability of the brand was too solid to be completely scratched. So a logo refresh, new typography system, and an updated color palette was the safest approach.

Brand Guidelines

The new look and feel needed to be spread across hundreds of franchisees between North America, Europe, and Oceania. It was essential to prepare documentation and develop guidelines to ensure consistent branding.

Lean content strategy, full focus for users

Copy creation

Copy and content was well-curated to provide users with short, yet focused text — giving them the most value in a limited amount of space. We also worked closely with an SEO partner agency to maximize the performance of the website on multiple browsers.

Wireframes

Wireframes were oriented to a full-screen scroll experience where users were presented one section at a time. This behavior would enhance the clarity of each section, encouraging the users to take specific paths across the website established during the user flow creation.