The Challenge

Most bakery and food websites rely on:

• Product grids
• Vibrant color palettes
• Promotional CTAs
• Scarcity and urgency messaging
• Visual overload

These patterns conflicted with the intended brand position:

• High-income audience
• Demand-driven availability
• Craft over spectacle
• Heritage over novelty

The challenge:
How might a website communicate value, scarcity, and credibility without selling?

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Design Goals

1. Establish Maison Verlaine as an institution, not a brand personality
2. Communicate luxury through restraint and clarity, not embellishment
3. Replace transactional UX patterns with editorial pacing
4. Ensure each page reinforces the same narrative principles
5. Allow the absence of features (pricing, grids, CTAs) to communicate confidence

Strategy

Editorial UX Over Ecommerce UX

Rather than designing a traditional product site, the experience was structured like an editorial publication:

• Pages introduce concepts before visuals
• Copy leads; imagery supports
• Navigation is narrative, not goal-oriented
• Scarcity is explained, not advertised

Every design decision asked the same question:

Does this add clarity—or unnecessary noise?

Information Architecture

The site is structured as a narrative loop, not a funnel:

1. Home — Orientation & tone setting
2. Our Story — Institutional heritage
3. Atelier — Process & standards
4. Macarons — Product philosophy
5. Visit — Experience & expectation

Each page answers a different question:

• Who are we?
• Why should this be trusted?
• How is the work done?
• What is being offered?
• What should I expect?

No page attempts to do more than one job.

Page-Level UX Decisions

Home

• No hero CTA
• Neutral language
• Navigation invites exploration
• Acts as an editorial table of contents

Our Story

• Focus on lineage, not founders
• Élodie introduced as a steward, not a protagonist
• Monochrome illustration reinforces archival tone
• Avoids dates, awards, and personal quotes

Atelier

• Process described without steps or metrics
• No behind-the-scenes spectacle
• Single image placed after trust is established
• Reinforces discipline and standards

Macarons

• No product grid
• No pricing
• No flavor lists
• Focus on balance, color restraint, and presentation
• Treats macarons as objects of craft, not items to buy

Visit

• Sets expectations before logistics
• No maps, hours, or urgency
• Visit framed as an experience shaped by standards
• Location provided only as essential information

Visual System

Typography

• Canela for headings: editorial authority
• Inter for body text: modern clarity
• No decorative flourishes
• Spacing used instead of emphasis

Color

• Soft bone background
• Near-black text
• Antique gold used sparingly
• Product colors never reused in UI

This ensures the interface never competes with the work itself.

What Was Intentionally Excluded

• CTAs and conversion funnels
• Product pricing
• Testimonials and reviews
• Promotional language
• Visual trends
• Interactive novelty

These omissions are not gaps—they are signals of confidence.

Outcome

The final experience presents Maison Verlaine as:

• Calm
• Confident
• Disciplined
• Institutional
• Trustworthy

The site demonstrates how UX can communicate value through absence, and how narrative structure can replace persuasion.