Home Client Work Website & e-Commerce Mirrabelle, Massachussetts



The simple side navigation bar works quite well, both for static pages as well as for the dynamically generated products catalogue.

The Challenge
Mirrabelle, a small boutique and art gallery in Massachusetts, was planning on launching a large marketing and awareness campaign to promote George Nakashima, the acclaimed furniture designer and architect, and his unique approach to wood working. Besides organising media events and press releases, Mirrabelle wanted to launch a new website in tandem with these events. The website was to become the hub of its marketing efforts, providing an introduction to Mirrabelle, George Nakashima and his Golconde line of furniture, while also making this a portal for all their other products. The launch was scheduled for 6th September 2004. It was already the 20th of August.

The Process
crossroad was approached with the basic structure of the website in place and a preliminary sketch of the home page, as envisaged by PR spokes-persons for the company. Starting from this sketch, we quickly set out to build various page layouts and colour schemes. The sitemap was refined and expanded to allow seamless integration with the online catalogue. Additional web copy and images were commissioned right away even though the information design stage wasn't yet complete.

Once a suitable design was conceived, primary and secondary level navigation details were worked out. A prototype site was quickly assembled and shown to the clients for approval. Leveraging on our rich library of code we could quickly model Mirrabelle's product tree and generate the dynamic listings required for the online products catalogue.

The entire website was submitted to the client in less than two weeks.

The site's information architecture was pretty straightforward and could quite easily be accommodated in a two level navigation system. Seen here is a section of the masthead with a stylised image of the Matri Mandir at Auroville.

A shopping cart application is currently under development to allow visitors the convenience of ordering products directly from the website. The furniture, which is manufactured here at Pondicherry, is made from the original templates developed by Nakashima. And even the process of treating and polishing the timber follows closely the methods developed by him.
A sketch of the home page provided to us by the client became the basis of the design direction for the entire website. The detailed annotations helped greatly the HTML and graphics production team.

The Result
Mirrabelle's marketing efforts have had a great success. The website has attracted many visitors from all over the world and has proven to be an indispensable tool to promote not only Mirrabelle's boutique and art gallery but also revive global awareness for George Nakashima's unique contributions to architecture and woodworking. It has helped raise substantial profits from the sale of these products, profits that were donated to the Auroville Land Fund.

The Mirrabelle home page, featuring furniture from the George Nakashima collection. To the left are rollover image links into the online catalogue.