Editorial UX · Visual Identity · Discovery Design
Most Wine Sites Sell Bottles. This One Sells Where They Came From.
View Prototype
Alpha Wine
Wine discovery concept, story-first over price-first
Role
Solo Product Designer
Responsibilities
- Designed the full visual identity
- Built a story-before-price discovery flow
- Replaced filters with chapter-based navigation
Timeline
Concept · 4 weeks
Problem
Buying wine online feels nothing like buying wine in person.
A good wine shop feels personal. The website should too. Most wine sites feel like a spreadsheet instead, so Alpha Wine rebuilds that warm, in-store feeling on screen.
Competitive landscape
Design Decisions
Decision
Story Before Grid
Why
No product grid up front. Region and process lead, with scroll-linked motion reinforcing the sequence.
Editorial sequence, scroll-linked, grid never appears above the fold
Decision
Provenance Before Price
Why
Vineyard, vintage, and tasting notes lead. Price comes last, after the buyer already cares.
Story leads, price and purchase action follow
Decision
Chapters, Not Filters
Why
Filters trigger comparison shopping. Navigation is chapter-based instead: browse by story, not spec.
Chapter-based navigation replacing category filters
0%
Say brand stories influence their purchasing decisions
0%
Call a brand's story a key factor in their buying decision
0%
Avg. conversion lift for story-led over spec-first marketing
0%
Of wine buyers prefer self-directed tasting over a sales pitch
Sourced from published consumer-behavior research (Psychology & Marketing meta-analysis, wine-tourism consumer studies), not from Alpha Wine's own traffic. There is no live product yet.
Visual Identity
Restraint reads as premium. Every token here removes noise so the photography and prose carry the weight.
Color Tokens
#1E0024
Noir-Purple Base
Backgrounds, reads as cellar depth
#C9A227
Gold Accent
Suggests aged provenance, used sparingly
#B76E79
Rose Accent
Softens the palette
#1E0024
Base / Noir-Purple
#C9A227
Accent / Gold
#B76E79
Accent / Rose
Accent color appears only at the moment of selection, not before.
Typography
Display, Forum
Weight: Regular, roman serif
Size: Large scale, headlines
Echoes wine label tradition
Body, Caudex
Weight: Regular
Size: Holds 300-word essays
Tasting notes, winemaker stories
Display / Forum
Alpha Wine
Body / Caudex
Grown on a single south-facing slope, this vintage carries the mineral character of the region's limestone bedrock.
Space
80-160px vertical rhythm, one product per key screen.
Learning + Trade-off
