Taking "The Little Barbershop" Online
Industry
Barbers
Client
Busby & Goodfellows
Developing a digital style
I worked with Harry and Luke to build a brand style that reflected their distinctive barbershop, centred on traditional serif fonts and muted colours that fits with their vintage interior. We worked with Luke's dad (a writer and poet) to develop the copy on the website, bringing a personal touch and introducing their humour to new visitors. Here's an extract; "When these two first met, it would be fanciful to talk of fate or destiny in the manner of, say, Lennon & McCartney’s first meeting or the colliding of stars that ended up as Morecambe & Wise. A Yin finding its Yang? Hardly. When two barbers meet it will never be an inter-galactic encounter, but when two blokes meet – two blokes who happen to be men of hair – it can be said that chords were struck and the humour was unanimous." I provided all the photography for the website. We started with the shop, capturing all of the fantastic collectibles and oddities, as well as the feel of the barbershop - the chairs, sinks and clippers. I then visited a few times while they were working, showing the warmth of their customer interactions and the atmosphere of the barbershop.
A Client's Perspective
One of the most important requirements from Luke and Harry was to create a website that was quick and easy to find key information - opening times, booking information and prices. I worked on a one page website, with navigation links which anchored to those key sections. As they had a great connection with their clients, an effective method of research was talking to customers as they arrived for their haircuts to find any issues they were having with the website.We had a two clear user journeys in mind when building the website. Firstly regular clients who had been visiting the barbershop for years. For these clients it was about expanding the barbershop, we added a shop section so can buy merchandise and a sign up to a newsletter to keep in the loop with the community that the guys had developed. Secondly the new clients who had found them when visiting Stratford or through online searches. A key challenge was was to convert walk-ins to bookings to better manager their schedules. This took some trial and error, eventually landing on a scrolling message bar - the first thing users see when entering the website encouraging them to call to make an appointment.
