Family heritage on a website can help create a strong personal connection with the audience. Sharing stories, traditions, and historical background can evoke emotions and build rapport with visitors, making them feel more engaged and connected to the content.
Boodles are a forward-looking business, family orientated since 1798. With over two centuries of history, Boodles proudly embraces its British heritage. Its collections often reflect the brand's commitment to artistry and craftsmanship, influenced by the rich cultural traditions of Great Britain.
“At Boodles, we are always looking for new and interesting ways to portray our jewellery designs online. We approached Unified to help us launch our new High Jewellery collection on our website in a clear, but characterful way."
Laura Edwards - Digital Marketing Manager - Boodles
Every year they release a high-jewellery collection carved out of inspiration from a cultural highlight of the past, present or future. This year Boodles chose to honour a family journey that opened up a new world. In 1962, Anthony Wainwright went on a remarkable adventure — meeting dealers in fine diamonds and gemstones, on a tour lasting just 16 days. The friendships he made transformed Boodles.
Six decades on, Boodles Chairman, Nicholas Wainwright has honoured his father’s initiative with a journey of his own; ten European cities, in ten days. The collection is collated of high-quality gemstones such as diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and more in the form of beautiful rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets. Watch the film.
The brief & challenges
Boodles have always been incredibly good at portraying their high-jewellery collections through marketing in print and in their showrooms, but they wanted to make sure that the collection was also portrayed to the same luxurious standard on their website.
This time around they knew they wanted to show the family heritage through the jewellery and wanted to dedicate more online space to the collection than in previous years, which may have included a banner or press release/blog, in order to truly honour the journey taken by Nicholas. Knowing that their customers browse online before going to store, Boodles advertising was traditionally steered towards their showrooms, but this time they wanted us to help reflect the offline marketing efforts online in an immersive and interactive way that successfully told this amazing story.
"We wanted to show the journey in an interactive way, and Unified came up with a great suggestion to animate the route using a dotted line down the page which passes through the different places and jewellery along the route. The jewellery could then be explored further through subpages in a bold and clean way that worked well on both desktop and mobile."
Laura Edwards - Digital Marketing Manager - Boodles
Collaboration & storytelling
It was clear from the beginning that this collection was telling a heartfelt family story, so the website needed to convey the same. Each piece is crafted with meticulous attention to detail, making them stand out in the world of luxury jewellery, so we were ready to design a website to match.
After being sent the Family Journey video we got to work coming up with some truly immersive ideas to tell the story of Nicholas’ journey across Europe. Our designers provided variations on a concept whilst working closely with the team at Boodles to find a narrative that would resonate with visitors.
Strategy
In total the project took four months from the commencement of design work to the go-live date in early July. We made sure that the site was optimised for mobile devices, ensuring that Boodles website not only looked appealing but also functions effectively across different screen sizes. A mobile-responsive design enhances user experience and accessibility whilst also converting mobile consumers.
"This is one of many projects we've done with Boodles, and this one in particular was a wonderful blend of exciting design, developing interactive elements and meeting a challenge of bringing the Family Jewellery collection to life on the website. We knew we had to do the collection justice, and tell it's story."
Alicia Deakin - Project Manager - Unified
Like most projects the design evolved over time through collaboration with the client. From the start we knew we wanted to use creative and personal design to communicate a complex subject and set the Boodles website apart from competitors. Infographics, visual diagrams, handwritten letters and illustrations were a big part of the original concept for this project to make the content more immersive.
We suggested the use of interactive elements, animations, and creative layouts to keep users engaged and encourage them to interact with Boodles’ content; out of that the use the interactive map was born. It was truly rewarding to see one of our ideas be brought to life by a clients in house team – it was a real team effort win. Incorporating our creative design with a clients marketing team allows for alignment with brand's goals and target audience preferences. It's essential, for a project of this scale, to strike a balance between agency input/creativity and a brands existing knowledge of website usability to ensure that our designs enhance user experience and support a brands overall objectives.
"This was an interesting and diverse project to work on, made up of various interactive sections, displaying the content in a engaging format."
Matt Kempster - Frontend Developer - Unified
We knew that creative UX led design can indirectly impact a website's search engine optimisation (SEO). This is because a visually engaging and user-friendly website can lead to longer visit durations, lower bounce rates, and increased user interactions, all of which can positively influence SEO rankings, so we had to make sure all the standard SEO checks were done too.
We thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the Boodles journey and being inspired by a collection which is full of unique and imaginative designs that showcase a blend of classic elegance and contemporary creativity as well as family heritage.
As one of the most esteemed jewellery brands in the world, Boodles continues to captivate jewellery enthusiasts with its extraordinary designs and commitment to excellence.
Boodles now stands with a preservation of the family legacy online through the Family Journey project. Their current high-jewellery collection serves as a platform to preserve and pass on the family story and share it worldwide.
