This document provides a creative brief for a website for Queen City Furniture, a company that makes furniture from reclaimed wood. The target audience is environmentally-conscious urban professionals aged late 20s to 30s. The objectives of the site are to establish the company as a trusted maker of sustainable furniture and to showcase their products. The design requirements call for clean, minimal photography-focused pages that avoid distractions to let the reclaimed wood products take center stage.

1. QUEEN CITY FURNITURE Scott Thompson
Web Design I
Creative brief/RFP
BACKGROUND Queen City Furniture is a company that will utilize recycled and
reclaimed wood to create one-of-a- kind furniture, such as benches,
desks, and shelves. I am focusing on this project because I believe
that a worn and aged piece of wood exhibits more beauty, char-
acter, and history than a freshly harvested piece of wood. Using
reclaimed wood also cuts down on needless deforestation, and pre-
vents a perfectly good piece of wood from ending up in a landfill. I
also believe that in the era of IKEA, people are becoming increas-
ingly drawn to pieces that have a sense of history and authenticity,
as opposed to mass produced and generic. This company would
seek to fulfill that need, and create something beautiful in the pro-
cess, while preserving some of the earth’s resources.
Target Audience This site would be aimed at hip, urban people in their late 20s and
30s. They would have sophisticated and discerning taste, and be
relatively well-off. They would respond more to minimalism and
restraint than clutter and “loud” design. They would have an inter-
est in environmentalism, but this would not necessarily be their
primary motivation for buying the furniture. It is a plus, but not
necessary the deciding factor.
Objectives • Establish the company as a trusted maker and seller of furni-
ture made with reclaimed wood.
• Present the company as having taste, a sense of style, and a
commitment to aesthetics.
• Inform the visitor about the products available, and how they
can be purchased.
• Inform the visitor on the building process behind the furniture,
including information on the reclaiming process, and informa-
tion on different types of wood.

2. Objectives CONT. • Establish a “voice” that is formal enough to be legitimate, but
friendly enough to be approachable and personal.
• Inform the visitor of how using reclaimed wood is more envi-
ronmentally-friendly than harvesting new wood for furniture.
Single Message Queen City Furniture makes quality reclaimed wood furniture
that has character and history, while being a more environmen-
tally friendly alternative to standard mass market furniture.
design The design of the site should be clean and sophisticated, primar-
ily showcasing the product. Information about the company and
Requirements the products should be easy to read and presented in a clean and
structured way, making sure that it does not overtake the images
of the product in visual importance. It should be easy to navigate,
and avoid any fancy or distracting transitions between pages.
Overall, I want the site to invoke the feeling of flipping through a
well designed-catalog or showroom.
Likes I like the following sites because of their clean typography, mini-
mal and sophisticated design, and use of photography. The type
on these sites tend to be small, and most embrace the use of white
space. The color palettes of these sites are also minimal, featuring
mostly white, black, and grey.

3. Likes CONT.

4. Likes CONT.

5. DisLikes This is a screen grab of a site that also sells furniture made with
reclaimed wood, but I feel that the design fails the product. The
large type fills up the frames of the images and obscures the prod-
uct. The photography also frequently features people posing on the
furniture, which looks cheesy and further obscures the product.
I dislike this site because the images have no room to breathe.
Even the side bars have distracting images on them.

6. Functionality/ I imagine the site being relatively simple, so the only “interactive”
item might be some sort of slideshow. This would likely be used to
Programming show different views of products, or a guide through the process of
Elements reclaiming wood.
Site Size Each page would show a small logo and the name of the company.
There would be a navigation bar on each page, allowing the user
(Each Page) to navigate to the home page, the blog page, or the products page.
Site Size I imagine the home page as having a single image showing one of
the products, and perhaps a line or two about the company. The
(Home PAge) image space could rotate through images of products. Clicking on
an image would bring the user to the product page.
Site Size This page could have articles about the production of the furni-
ture, as well as information on different types of wood and the
(Blog PAge) reclaiming process.
Site Size This page would show the different products. Each product would
have an image, a title, a brief description, the dimensions, and
(PRODUCT PAge) the price. This site could have thumbnails of products that would
bring the user to a separate product page.