Gulja Uyghur
01|About the project
Creation of a website for the restaurant Gulja Uyghur in Strasbourg. The project involved designing and developing a complete web presence for the restaurant, including menu pages, contact information, and an overall visual identity aligned with the Uyghur culture and cuisine.
The challenge was to build a site from scratch that would feel warm and authentic, communicate the richness of Uyghur cuisine, and work seamlessly on mobile for users searching on the go.
02|My process
01
Discovery
We met with the restaurant owner to understand his wants, his audience, and the story behind the brand. From there, we identified the key elements to communicate to customers: the menu, location, hours, and cultural identity at the heart of the restaurant.
02
Wireframes
I started out with low-fidelity wireframes to map out the structure of the website, keeping navigation simple and the most important information immediately visible. This allowed us to validate the concept with the client before moving forward.
03
Visual design
I proceeded with high-fidelity mockups in Figma, building a visual identity inspired by their existing Instagram account. Warm tones and rich food photography, all shot by us, work together to convey authenticity and appetite.
04
Delivery
Once the design was finalized, I walked the development team through it and handed over all the assets. From there, I checked in gradually throughout the integration to make sure everything stayed true to the design.
03|Design decisions
Authentic Uyghur culture
We based our work on the existing Instagram account and adapted its design for the web. This allowed us to reflect both the restaurant's identity and the feeling of Uyghur culture throughout the site.
Menu as the main feature
We photographed the entire menu ourselves to convey a professional image online. This let us take a more original approach to presenting the menu and surface all the essential information for the user.
Mobile-first, thumb-friendly layout
Most of our target users rely on their phones to look for new restaurants, so we added quick access to the map for directions and to the phone number to make reservations easier.
04|What I learned
I'm grateful to this project for introducing me to web design. I learned a great deal through it, and I can now look back and reflect on my work. At the time, I didn't have a grasp of some of the fundamentals, like spacing rules and similar basics. Thanks to this project, I learned how to talk to a client and I can now really see how much I've grown over the past few years.
Thanks for reading!
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