One Sweet Website Redesign

for Opal Apples

For 12 years, the Opal apple, a brilliant yellow cross between a Golden Delicious and a Topaz, has been tested in over 60 orchards throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. The apple strain itself was first discovered in Europe in 1999 and has been cultivated for a few primary characteristics: a crunchy texture, a sweet and tangy flavor, and – here’s the real spectacular part – resistance to browning after slicing. Also, in addition to being a delicious brand of apple, the Opal company gives back by supporting youth-based non-profits with every purchase.

Services

Development Platforms

The Website Redesign

Opal’s old site design had all the right elements: bright colors that reflected the Opal brand, information on Opal’s history and where to find the apples, and how each Opal Apple purchase went back into the community. It needed a modern refresh, though, and we set to work implementing more recent design trends and elements that could help make Opal’s online home a bit more stylish. The new site is sleeker, cleaner, and more reflective of the company’s engaging image, thanks to better integration with Opal’s social media platforms.

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Finding Opal

The only thing helping site visitors locate their Opal apples on the old site was a basic list. It worked, but everyone agreed it could use a little UI tweaking to take it from “good” to “great” on the redesigned website. To help progress this section beyond that undeveloped list, we implemented a “Found an Opal” crowdsourcing feature that killed two birds with one stone: first, it allowed Opal customers to engage directly with the site and the brand, and second, it enabled the people at Opal to document Opal-selling locations without having to constantly update the list of stores themselves.

Find An Opal

Recipes

While enjoyable on their own, Opal apples are also wonderful in a variety of dishes – and the Opal website wanted to showcase that. The recipes section for the new site took the long list of Opal recipes that made up the section on the old site and streamlined everything into an easily navigable, aesthetically pleasing, image-focused landing page. Individual recipe pages contain all the relevant ingredients and directions and integrate share buttons for anyone wishing to shout out their love of Opal apples on various social media platforms or via email.

OPAL APPLES BLOG

Opal’s old way of sharing news was, like a lot of its old design, pretty basic. For the website redesign, we implemented a blog system where Opal could display any news or press releases that related to their product, as well as information about their fundraising and charitable works, or any special Opal stories they want to share. Key features of the Opal blog are a clean, simple categories system, a blog-wide search function, and Disqus integration for Opal-related comments.

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Colonial Management Group, LP Company

Paytronix