I wanted to design a new prototype website as new addition to my portfolio, but was not able to come up with a theme or a concept. I only knew that the new addition to the website had to have some sort of transactional or input given function as an restaurant or an online shop. As every project I started my research online for different examples with such functions. What was unforeseen inspiration for me was actually the movie playing in the background, which was The Mummy. That was the reason I chose the Arab inspired design and with a little more research the idea became complete - a bar in Morocco.
The website/prototype has one page with three locations from which the user can choose where to go. I created it this way so that it would look natural to a normal functioning website. One is a just a bar the other is bar and restaurant, the one I chose to create, the other is hotel and spa.
The logo was created with an idea for a traveller being lost in the desert trying to find his way in the dunes and ultimately find an oasis. And from there I thought of the concept camel guiding the traveller to the oasis. There are two logos one with the camel and the other for the door of the oasis and each one is representative of the main, menu and booking page and the page for the restaurant itself.
The page of the "El Hara Restaurant and Bar" is designed in a way that I loved, mainly because it had everything that the user may need to see in one page with no additional menus and distracting information and that contributes to the functionality of the page. It includes information about the place, the location, opening hours, pictures of the food and drinks, the menu and social media links and of course the link to the reservation options.
The reason I decided to create the menu is that I wanted to enrich the design further by choosing one more pattern and typography that I think contributes further to the arabic feel of the design:
To make this more challenging for me I decided to keep the reservation options outside of the main page. This reflects any real restaurants that have external booking systems and is part of my initial idea to have a page with user input. I wanted to have a page that awakens curiosity in the user and requires a simple interaction with the slogan itself. This conceptually creates to the feeling of being lost in the desert and the camel helping you find the way to the bar/oasis.
The booking process itself is simple, first letting the user choose a date and time and then allowing them to enter a name and an email to confirm the reservation. The conscious decision was made first to show just the date and time and later the name and email input fields in order to reduce cognitive load. A simple confirmation concludes the booking process allowing the user to go to the homepage.
This project gave me the opportunity to once again explore prototyping in Figma. An exercise in layout, typography and colour it was a great challenge and fun way to exercise.
