Redesign Essen international

About
Essen International is a design company with studios in Stockholm and San Francisco. The assignment was to build a responsive website with focus on big imagery and the studio's great work.

The website became Site of the day: Awwwards.com
My Role and contributions
  • Interaction and visual design
  • Design concept
  • Delivering finals and conducting development
Concept
Essen International’s design approach manifests post modernist Swiss design. Most of the work has a strong reliance on typographic elements and structured grid systems. The visual identity is based on the typeface Neue Haas Grotesk, which is a hallmark of Swiss graphic design. The new website reflects on Essen International’s visual design.

“The overall impression should be simple and rational, tightly structured, clear, objective, well-proportioned and harmonious.”
Wordpress editor
To allow as much flexibility as possible, it was important to integrate a lot of options into the Wordpress interface. On the left: Single page sketch back-end and front-end.
Mouse over
Using only black and white for all rollovers an interactions fits well if you won’t distract from the imagery and content.
Some learnings
Defining a grid which binds all viewports together, but still gives enough flexibility in the design is a challenge and takes time. On the other hand, it makes the design process at the end much easier when every piece finds its place.
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