Context
Cappellini is an Italian design furniture company, carrying products by famous designers such as Shiro Kuramata, Jasper Morrison, Erwan Bouroullec, Marcel Wanders and others. Some of its products have been exhibited in modern art galleries in New York (MoMa), Rome, Paris, London and San Francisco.
In 2004 I was contacted by the director of Cappellini’s new Los Angeles showroom to design and develop a website and monthly newsletter.
Challenge
The remarkable quality and quantity of products to be showcased to a well defined target was clear from the very first meeting with the showroom director.
The function of the newsletter and website was to generate visits to Cappellini’s West Hollywood showroom and to increase brand visibility along the west coast of the United States.
With these goals in mind, starting in June 2004 and for the next two years, I worked freelance for CappelliniLA on the design, management, and updating of the showroom website and on the design and management of the monthly newsletter.
Process
Following the initial meetings with the client to define the target audience and the communication strategies, I moved on to product analysis, working from the collections in the Cappellini Italian digital archive.
Considerations regarding the target audience, together with the work of product selection and an analysis of competitors (magazines, retail stores, websites, newsletters), allowed me to structure the initial architecture of the information to be used on the website and in the newsletter.
I then moved on to define and set up the necessary technological infrastructure (hosting, domain, web technologies, newsletter management provider, etc.). Once the design prototypes for the website and newsletter were tested and agreed upon, design of the final layout was completed.
Results
The newsletter and website were online as expected, in time for the Christmas season.
As a result of the newsletter and website, in addition to the events publicised there, the showroom markedly increased its visibility and quickly became a reference point for the West Hollywood Design District. The brand and the activities it promoted received local media attention and brought recognition to Italian design talent along the West Coast of the United States.
