Project: House of Balsamic

Role: Director, Information Architecture

The House of Balsamic imports the Malpighi line of Balsamic Vinegar from Modena, considered to be the finest Balsamic Vinegar in the world. The House of Balsamic’s goal is to not just sell the finest quality Balsamic, but to educate the U.S. about this liquid elixir. In Italy, these 25, 50 and 100 year old bottles have traditionally been used for health, cooking, cocktails and a variety of curious remedies.

This is a startup venture that was seeking web strategy, identity work, a content publishing platform and a social media plan to promote their new business. While the User Experience crafted a view on what content needed to be developed (copy, images, video, etc.) the architecture was developed to scale with the venture’s expected growth.

Their first launch is the website where U.S. audiences can learn about Balsamic and purchase the product. The next effort will be to scale the online offering to be a socially driven portal. The site is built in Drupal allowing the client to easily add content, sections and features as the business and audience grows.	The site architecture allowed for future expansion as greater content requirements grow over time. The House of Balsamic plans on offering additional products and categories to eventually become a global lifestyle brand.

The User Experience was generated around the premise of activating the senses. Beautiful imagery of the landscape, the product and the lifestyle that surrounds the use of Balsamic are not only a visual design choice, but support an easy to use navigation structure and page layout.

Once launched in early April of 2010, all attention has been focused on measuring results and executing the appropriate social media response.

View: House of Balsamic

The project was created in partnership with The Groop.