Carneros Farmhouse is a family owned vineyard in Napa Valley's Carneros appellation. The vineyard is owned by my parents, Matt and Kris Wilkinson, and was planted in 2000.
My parent's website was in need of a facelift, and I wanted to help them create an updated site that showcased their property and their Chardonnay. I started by going over the basic things the site needed: an "about us" section, a section going over the history of the property, and a section dedicated to the fruit and the wineries we have worked with. I had originally included a "contact" section, but my parent's decided it was unnecessary. The site needed to have a basic flow, where each section built off of the previous section. I decided that the site can exist on a single page, with anchors connected to the navigation. This way users can jump to different sections of the site with ease, but can still scroll through all of the information if desired.
Below are scans of wireframes and my initial design ideas.
I chose to build the site using Adobe Muse. While I am familiar with basic HTML/CSS, I wanted to give the software a try. Adobe Muse allowed me to design and build the site at the same time. It also allowed me to check my designs in the browser earlier in the process, so I could find and eliminate problems with my design as they arose. While it did have some quirks, I was able to do everything visually without jumping back and forth between Adobe Illustrator and my code.
Designing this site for my parents was a good experience and I am happy that I was able to create this for them.
Visit the website here.