dark·​room | \ ˈdärk-ˌrüm  , -ˌru̇m \

noun

 

: A darkroom refers to a space where art and science come together to create something complete before premiering to the public. It’s where process and creativity combine to form a final product.

 

This is why we’ve chosen it as our name.

Group 133 (5)
Background

Darkroom built and launched an interactive new digital platform for Crate & Barrel in record time.

 

Crate & Barrel is a leading retailer of furniture and home decor with an ever expanding ecommerce footprint. They approached Darkroom in January 2022 with a timely request: they needed to build and launch an interactive digital product for a new collection in just 2 months.

Group 133 (1)
“We wanted to create a platform to showcase newness, equipped with fun bursts for inspiration.”
LEO CHANG STAFF DESIGNER, DARKROOM avatar
Group 133 (2)

We started by helping Crate & Barrel build out pre-launch collateral for industry contacts and press. We quickly built a private digital lookbook to give this select audience a sneak peak and access to the new collection 6 weeks before launch.

Next, we got to work designing a whole new digital platform, using the collection itself as inspiration. We started with market and competitive UX research to inform the customer journey and UI design. We also managed art direction and content creation, building out a full asset repository for the new digital product pages. Then we started wireframing and high-fidelity prototyping, delivering the first version of the new digital product in just 14 days.

 

After the prototyping phase was complete, we designed the site architecture, built out landing pages, and did both front-end and back-end development in house. We placed special emphasis on site performance, designing customer journeys that were inspirational, interactive, and also converted well.

Frame 406
“Darkroom allowed us to leverage our digital experience and deploy fully custom web pages. We are thrilled with the custom design concepts they help us create on every project—the attention-to-detail we receive surpasses every expectation we had of a partner agency.”
MARGAUX GONYEA DIRECTOR, CRATE & BARREL avatar
Rectangle 351
Rectangle 352 (1)

Darkroom not only helped Crate & Barrel build and launch an all new digital product, we also helped them build out internal processes – including an internal taskforce and new content management system – to allow them to continue to innovate on their ecommerce platforms.