Responses by Jess Brown, creative director and Justin Armstrong, web developer, Planit

Background: With a growing base of chefs and consumers eager to get their hands on True Chesapeake oysters, the brand was in need of a hardworking website. The new website educates users about the oyster farm’s unique location and how it cultivates the distinct True Chesapeake flavor profile. In addition, Planit incorporated e-commerce functionality as a way to make the oysters even more accessible to customers. Above all, Planit wanted to ensure that the light-hearted personality of True Chesapeake’s culture came through in everything, from the messaging and photography, down to the quirky illustrations and product names.

Highlights: E-commerce functionality; Strong storytelling across the entire site, even on product pages; Big, honest and approachable photography and quirky illustrations for wayfinding and educational elements.

Challenges: Meeting the client’s need for specific shipping on certain items without scaling up to an e-commerce platform that didn’t suit its current distribution volume.

Favorite details: The homepage oyster comparison—a very clever way to showcase two products, as it saves space, encourages user interaction and is visually interesting; the catering custom image carousels; and, the beyond sustainable grid, which was also challenging to develop.

Navigational structure: The navigation was divided into two main parts: the content pages, which contain content about the company and are displayed as simple text links, and the “mega menu” that drops down and highlights the two types of oysters and two featured collections. The e-commerce shop was given its own navigational item with the global button style applied.

Technical features: The oyster datepicker, which checks users’ carts for oysters based on stock keeping units. If the users’ carts contain oysters, the checkout button is disabled until the users select an acceptable delivery date when the oyster brand is able to ship the oysters. In addition, the oyster delivery date is sent to both the client and users as a “note” in the confirmation emails they each receive.