Website Design Case Study

Learn how we created a new e-commerce website for Willie's Remedy, a leader in the CBD space, through strategic planning and purposeful design.

Project Overview

Willie's Remedy, a leader in the hemp product space, gets its name from the legendary musician and activist, who happens to serve as their Chief Tasting Officer. The brand offers a complete line of infused coffees and teas, hemp-oil tinctures, and balm while supporting organic growing practices and the Nelson family's commitment to American farmers and environmental stewardship.

Willie's Remedy brought us on to consolidate their two existing websites into a new, beautifully designed e-commerce site. After multiple strategy sessions and careful planning with Willie's team, we were eager to get started and create an online experience of the quality level that their customers have come to expect.

The Brand

Willie's is more than an e-commerce company. They distribute their hemp-infused products to retailers nationwide and have become one of the most well-known CBD coffee and tea brands. When an established business comes to us for help, we always take a step back to look holistically at how we can best communicate the story and other attractive aspects of the brand.

For Willie's Remedy, this meant finding an effective way to showcase their steadfast commitment to American farmers and their customers. Their goal is to make it easy for people to incorporate the benefits of full-spectrum hemp extract into their daily routine.

Keeping this essential information in mind, we started to create a wireframe and outline of the website structure to ensure that it would include the pages and sections necessary to sell products and accentuate critical brand elements.

Pictured above is a collection of the core pages we designed for the website.

Approach and Process

To begin the website design process, we scheduled a series of strategy meetings with Willie's Remedy to understand their goals in creating a new website. We spent considerable time planning to develop a better shopping experience while playing to the brand that their customers know and trust. Many companies miss the planning and strategy step in their marketing and advertising. It takes time, energy, and resources, but setting goals and objectives and a strategy by which you achieve them is critical to success.

After working with their team to understand the goals and direction of the new website, we started by creating a website outline and wireframe of the website's various pages, sections, call-to-actions, and features. We kept educational content, the brand story, and fluid navigation top of mind when building the outline. From here, it was time to dive into the actual buildout and design of the website.

Each website design project is different, depending on the industry, type of company, target customer, etc. However, we've developed a process that we find effective for every situation to present potential designs and get feedback early on in the process.

First, we start with the homepage design, where we incorporate various brand elements, identify appropriate typography and imagery, and set the tone for the overall look and feel of the website. A draft of the homepage is the first piece we present to the client, usually after two weeks, to get their feedback on the direction we're heading. After a meeting to review progress and some adjustments, we have a framework that we can apply across the website's e-commerce pages and other sections.

Next, we design the other top-level pages listed in our wireframe like shop pages, about pages, informational content, and others. We share each finished page with the client to see the complete website come together. We find this approach effective because the client is involved throughout the process and knows what to expect from the completed website, rather than not seeing any progress until we're six weeks in and the work doesn't align with their vision.

After developing the homepage and several other core pages, we have a good base for the final website. From here, there is a lot of adjusting and fine-tuning to get everything tightened up and prepared for launch.

Here are some items that we complete in the next stage, as the website begins to take shape, among other things:

Development of ancillary pages
Mobile and tablet optimization and responsiveness
Website speed testings and optimization
Set up of lead capture and contact forms

Website design is a detailed, collaborative process that requires thorough planning and clear communication to get it right. Working closely with Willie's Remedy, we ensured that we met all requests from key stakeholders and that the website contained all the features they needed, like a loyalty program, custom iconography, and assets for retail partners.

We leveraged the branded Willie's Remedy dark blue to overlay text and icons on top of imagery.

Adapting an Existing Brand

Creating a website for a new company is quite different than creating one for an established brand. For new companies, we look to fully develop their branding before jumping into a website project. Willie's Remedy already had a logo, color palette, packaging, and other brand elements at the start of our engagement. In this case, we needed to adapt and further develop Willie's Remedy's brand assets for a digital format and find ways to tie their packaging, colors, and imagery into backgrounds, informational pages, and other parts of the website. The result was a cohesive look across Willie's Remedy's digital, print, and other materials.

Pictured above is an example of how we adapted pieces of the brand for the website. The rope-style icons are present on Willie's Remedy packaging but had not been leveraged on the old website. We repurposed these elements to separate sections and elements cleanly.

Content Pages

A robust website will feature many informational and supplemental pages in addition to the home, about, e-commerce, and other core pages. Outlined below are examples of coffee brewing guides, cocktails, and recipe pages we developed to teach customers how to use Willie's Remedy products creatively.

Pictured above are examples of informational pages we created to showcase recipes that use Willie's Remedy products.

Expanding the Brand

In addition to utilizing the existing brand, we also found ways to develop pieces further to create a more cohesive look. The example below shows how we expanded the rope icons from Willie's Remedy packaging in icons and sections across the website.

Pictured above are examples of GEO's old packaging before we started the redesign process.

Custom Product Icons

Our design team created the custom product icons you see above for each of the e-commerce category pages on Willie's Remedy. The icons help give the product-focused sections a more complete look while making it easy for customers to quickly identify which page they're on.

Pictured above are custom icons that we designed for each Willie's Remedy product category.

E-Commerce Pages

Creating a seamless user experience is important for any website, and even more important for e-commerce businesses. Hard-to-navigate pages will frustrate visitors and negatively affect your conversion rates. In our process with Willie's Remedy, we emphasized the importance of beautiful yet simple products, categories, and shop pages to help customers easily find what they're looking for. The example below shows the layouts we created for these pages.

Pictured above are examples of shop and category pages on Willie's Remedy where customers can browse for products, filter by category, and add items to their cart for one-time or subscription-based purchase.

The Result

The result of strategic planning and execution was the beautiful website showcased below. Leading up to launch, we carefully planned out a set of steps to ensure minimal downtime and that the website kept its keyword rankings and organic traffic.

We're very proud of how this website turned out and are excited to share it with you. Hats off to our design team and their excellent work!

Cannabis Website Design

Thank you for taking the time to read our website design case study! MOST Consulting Group has experience developing websites for dispensaries, cultivators, processors, CBD companies, and service-based companies in the cannabis industry. We can help you develop a new website to align your online presence with your business goals. If you'd like more information on our services, we invite you to contact us today — we'll explain how MOST can help.