With decades of experience leading companies in the beverage and alcohol industries, Ron Rubin came to us with three established but distinct brands. He wanted a website that would grab the attention of beverage distributors and tell one cohesive story. Atomicdust created brand positioning and a website to help the trio of beverage brands get noticed in an ultra-competitive market.
With three distinct brands—Ron Rubin Winery, River Road Winery and Republic of Tea Bottled Tea—we needed to first build a brand architecture to help audiences understand each one’s unique traits. We created Ron Rubin Brands to house the lines. Underneath each wine label, two series (the Heart series and Dream series) offer additional distinction. This also set the foundation for a website with a straightforward structure and intuitive navigation.
Visitors to the site would be a mix of distributors and consumers, so crafting messaging that strikes the right balance was key. We made sure to spotlight both the wine and tea to appeal to distributors looking for ways to better serve their clients, while also including consumer-friendly information, calls to action and links to buy the beverages.
We reimagined the brand visually, using existing elements but pushing it forward. Ron subscribes to Zen and Feng Shui, so we used the philosophies’ main principles to guide our language and design choices. Brush stroke textures are threaded throughout the site. Plenty of white space allows graphic elements to breathe while pushing the product to center stage. Stylistic copy inspires the reader to take action.
Animation plays a big role on the site, from soft fade-ins as the user scrolls to brush stroke hover animations appearing behind the wine and tea bottles. The mobile site includes a different user interface for the menu to make navigation easy on phones and tablets. And knowing the brands would eventually introduce new products, we built the site so new content can be added easily.
