Northern Group website Design + dev for property sector

Please note, since completion the design of the website has been significantly altered and no longer reflects the original calm, confident and minimal direction intended.

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Northern Group are a prominent property developer based in Manchester. As part of their complete rebrand project, design studio Superfried collaborated with HiFi to design and develop their new website.

The back-end of the site would be technical with the requirement to completely integrate with their existing database software and internal / external screens all controlled through one CMS. The front-end was also challenging effectively serving two roles – showcasing the company services whilst also providing a comprehensive and detailed search platform for their property portfolio.

To avoid monotony and aid usability I wanted to create a sense of separation in the design between the info / presentation led section and the property search pages. This was achieved simply via colour – services would be placed on a black background where as the information-led search pages would employ a more practical, minimal white page.

Priority focus and consideration was placed on the usability design to ensure all search requirements were catered for. To achieve this we worked closely with the client whose extensive experience meant they would understand the market, search behaviour and requirements of their customers better than us. In addition to this collaboration, extensive research and design testing was conducted to ensure the optimal solutions were adopted. The page designs were subsequently refined through several iterations to present detailed user interface and information as cleanly as possible. This approach was also adopted for mobile devices to maintain all functionality and prevent the user experience from ever being compromised.

For the company / product-led section once again clean layouts were employed. Alternating from black to white helped to signpost new sections within content heavy pages. For design impact and distinction angled brand-led graphic devices were introduced.