Brindisa Restaurants

Brindisa is a group of restaurants and markets that sell gourmet Spanish food in the UK. I was initially drawn to this design for its typography, and the interesting use of color throughout the site. It is also packed with functionality, and provides multiple ways to view information. The main navigation is located at the top, and upon selection the various tabs open into different sub navs. Each sub nav is in list form at the left, and also in boxes with images in the content of the page. I love the callouts that are always at the top of the page as well, making it easy for the user to purchase items and to make reservations. The architecture is deep but the user can always find their way with a consistent format and navigation. The type is interesting and fun to interact with at first, but I think an additional treatment would have broken up the pace a bit as the bold headlines get old and almost tiring after spending a good amount of time browsing the site. The colors of the type make sense, but on the homepage they are too much. I think I would try bringing them in on rollover only, so there wouldn’t be so much color at any given time.

The entire site is very structured and very box driven. I think some of the boxes make sense, especially where the content is clickable or directing the user to another page. In other places I think the structure could have been pushed a bit more, with more overlapping images or less grid-like layouts. The imagery is totally photos, but I think the decision to primarily use close-up crops was good and gives a nice feeling to the site in general, especially with the subject matter of food.

Overall I think this site uses some great type and interesting images, but gets tiring too quickly and could use another layer of design elements to hold view interest for a longer amount of time.