Remmy’s Catering
Site: www.remmyscatering.com
Established:
2003
Purpose:
The purpose of this site is to advertise Remmy’s business
and facilitate communication with her customers.
Audience:
Remmy’s clientele includes the general public as well as corporate
and private event planners. In the greater Seattle metropolitan area, this
client base spans all levels of technical expertise, using a variety of browsers
and platforms.
Background
Remmy’s Catering is the reincarnation of Remmy's café, deli, and catering business, founded in 1998. Dawn “Remmy” Remington’s popular deli flourished and quickly outgrew her original facility. In 2003, Remmy restarted her business as catering-only. Developing her Web site was an essential part of reopening her business.
The site needed to be reliable and easy-to-use for all customers, as well as cost-effective for the new business. Consequently, I developed the site with an emphasis on basic Web technologies. So that new sections of the site could be added in the future, the pages are based on a common Dreamweaver template.
Navigation and Information Architecture
With tightly-focused content, the navigation for Remmy’s Catering was dictated by Remmy’s understanding of her customers’ needs. We divided the navigation into business offerings (menus), practical information (additional services and ordering instructions and policies), and utility pages (contact and background information).
Although the list of individual menus is lengthy, we felt that customers would not be overwhelmed by it and would appreciate being able to navigate quickly to menus of interest, rather than having to go through an intermediate page. As much as possible, we ordered the menus logically according to meal selection, working from breakfast, through lunch, dinner, and dessert.
Content and Editing
The primary content is Remmy’s extensive collection of dishes, including items for all meals (both casual and formal), appetizers, and deserts. Additional content includes information on other services Remmy offers and practical ordering information.
During the initial stages of Web site development, Remmy was compiling and revising her offerings. Since Remmy preferred to work in Microsoft Word, my first editing task was to construct a set of formatting styles that would support all menu items. The submitted menu content varied in format. I recast the submitted menus into the formatted Word document and returned them to Remmy for changes and approval. The formatted document had two advantages: it simulated the menus’ appearance on the Web site (giving positive feedback to Remmy) and provided a straightforward conversion path to HTML and CSS.
- Example submitted menus: Breakfast, Cold Appetizers
- Menu formatting: Word document, graphic
An additional step in the content-editing phase was to ensure consistent spelling, capitalization, and accents for all foods. Many items in Remmy’s menus are not listed in standard dictionaries, and I researched and developed a style sheet/glossary for the menus. Where items have multiple allowed spellings, the style sheet identifies the preferred spelling for the Web site.
Graphics and Layout
 Original logo; Colors assigned for print |
 Revised logo; Colors adjusted for online viewing |
Graphic Technologies of Issaquah, Washington, designed the logo for Remmy’s original business. This beautiful logo inspired all design elements of Remmy’s Web site.
For her new business, the words Café and Deli were dropped and the word Catering was centered under the gold horizontal rule. I adjusted the colors for online viewing, using the Pantone recommendations for purple and gold and the presentation of green in Expression, which is darker and richer than the Pantone recommendation.
The gold horizontal rule is a natural delineator for content text. For the navigation links, I used the same Trajan font as the logo. For body text, I selected a simple sans serif as a complement. All headings and item names are set in the purple of the logo.
I enlarged and lightened one of the leaves from the logo to use
behind the navigation links and to bridge the navigation and body content.
I placed another large leaf at the bottom right of the page for visual balance.
For embellishments, a leaf and vine separates
sections in each menu and a cluster
of grapes punctuates the end of each page of text.
By using elements of the logo throughout the page, the site
presents a visually consistent style.
Programming
Many of Remmy’s corporate customers repeatedly order from her Box Lunch menu. To facilitate ordering, I developed a Web-based form that checks that the order complies with Remmy’s policies. The minimum order is 20 lunches, up to three selections. With every additional 10 lunches ordered, the customer may make an additional selection.
Maintenance
The site was launched in August of 2003, with static pages for menus, services, and utility sections. The Box Lunch ordering form was added in October and the Wedding Packages section was added in January, 2004, just in time for a large wedding show in Seattle.
Testimonial
“Dawn: I have just gone through EVERY page and read every line of your web site and you did an absolute BEAUTIFUL job and everything is absolutely clear and easily understood. Your menus are to DIE for.... Its 6:27pm here and I am absolutely starved after looking at all options. I could “hunker” into any item.... Thank you for sharing. Wish I had some of those items here for my Mah Jongg gals dinner here tomorrow nite.
“...you did a great job and [Lorraine] put it together in a most clear way, I did not have one question. If I were the customer - it was all there and explained to every detail and you had to input all of that. I am most impressed. I have looked at other cater business presentations and nothing was ever as clear as your web site.”
— Marie (Remmy’s mother-in-law)
