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Can you look classy on the web? Ashford.com insists you can. The Houston-based company, which was launched in 1999 as one of the first luxury e-tailers with its collection of expensive watches and diamonds, has since broadened its focus to include upscale corporate gifts. The company was recently acquired by Global Sports Inc. of King of Prussia, PA. The Ashford website–similar to the website of its competitors, including Ice.com, Bluenile.com and Mondera.com–features a bright, crisp design that stands apart from the busy format favored by many e-commerce sites. We talked with Jeff Walker, creative director for Ashford.com, about the challenge of creating a design that conveys a sense of luxury and still maximizes limited screen page. Here are excerpts from that interview.
WSJ: What mood are you trying to create when a visitor first arrives at the site?
Mr. Walker: The mood is elegance. First of all, we don't want to take away from the product we are trying to display. We want the product to be the artwork.
WSJ: How is that different from other e-tailers that have a more general audience?
Mr. Walker: The site started as a pretty standard website, more text-based with little thumbnail images. The majority of my energies have gone into [creating a more specialized experience]. If you can't pick [the product] up, you have to be able to see it. So we try to show the details of the products and not compress the images so much. Then we have a big bandwidth problem. That is always the balance. You can make the pictures bigger if you put them on a white background and eliminate the extraneous color.
WSJ: Is that why most luxury websites seem to feature light colors and backgrounds?
Mr. Walker: I think the bandwidth issue is part of it. If your site is product-based, everything you put around that product detracts from the product. That was the goal of our latest design–remove every bit of color we could, especially on the pages with jewelry and diamonds. Those stones are very, very difficult [to capture] on the web. If you put any other color on that page, it makes that stone look insignificant. Especially if you are using platinum [for the metals]. If the metals are gold, you can use color more in the secondary areas.
WSJ: One thing I noticed on the site is that there are not many flashing or rotating images. Why is that?
Mr. Walker: We use it in a very limited way. In a limited-bandwidth world, I think a strong design will stand on its own. I'd rather have a clear picture than have too much movement on a screen. We'll use it when a design calls for it, but I never want it to take away from the pictures. Many, many sites go overboard and use movement and Flash [a web animation program] for the purpose of movement and flash. Even though we have an upscale target, a more mature target, we still have such a wide range of people that we have to take care of. [For] some people–like people who rarely use the Internet or are using the Internet for the first time– too much movement is going to scare them away.
WSJ: There are also no people on the website, no models. Was that a conscious decision?
Mr. Walker: We are product-focused. If there is limited bandwidth, let's avoid all that and let's show the product. All the space we have should go to the product and show the design of the product–what makes that product great. In the future we may relax that a bit, especially in the jewelry department. Putting a pearl strand on a woman's neck will be a better way to sell that, but I think the cons [for instance, conflict between available bandwidth and the size of the photo] outweigh the pros on that right now on the Internet. I would say for the most part, especially with the watches and handbags, keeping people out of [the picture] has been very good and I think it has given us a distinct look separate from our competitors. We don't have to show James Bond with the watch.
-jeff@junecreative.com home:(281)852-6042 cell:(832)577-9849
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