Overseas Food Trading LLC. Co-op
Designing a Company Website From Scratch
https://www.overseasfoodtrading.com/
Tools
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Figma
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Illustrator
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Photoshop
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Squarespace
Time Frame: 5 months (The length of the Co-op)
Summary
At Overseas Food Trading LLC, I led the design and development of the company’s first-ever website, creating a professional online presence from the ground up using Squarespace. My responsibilities ranged from early wireframing and UX planning to custom CSS development and brand alignment. I designed a sustainability-focused section to reflect the company’s values, integrated consistent brand visuals, and delivered clear documentation for handoff. The final product not only elevated the company’s credibility but also demonstrated my ability to execute an end-to-end UX/UI design process with tangible business impact.
Context
Before my involvement, Overseas Food Trading LLC had no digital footprint when it came to the company itself. Potential clients and partners had no centralized place to learn about their mission, services, or credibility within the food distribution industry. My role was to build a website that would serve as a platform to showcase the company's values and support business growth.
Goals
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Built the company’s first website from scratch.
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Communicate the company’s mission and values, especially within sustainability.
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Establish consistent visual branding in the absence of formal guidelines.
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Provide documentation for scalability and future maintenance.
Process
Low-Fidelity
The project began with research and competitive analysis. I worked closely with the internal design team to understand the company’s objectives, audience needs, and content requirements. To ensure the site would be competitive within the industry, I also reviewed websites from similar companies to identify best practices in layout, storytelling, and usability. Using these insights, I created initial sketches and low-fidelity wireframes to visualize the content hierarchy and page flow. This phase enabled early feedback from stakeholders and ensured alignment before proceeding to more detailed work.
Mid-Fidelity
During mid-fidelity iterations, we reassessed the original plan to include individual partner profile pages. Many of the partners lacked dedicated content, so creating separate pages for each of the company’s clients was not feasible. I proposed introducing a sustainability section instead, as the food packaging that was on the shelves already established this part of the company’s values. This information became a central feature of the website. This addition not only reflected the company’s eco-conscious mission but also provided a more meaningful narrative for visitors, highlighting the values that distinguish the company from its competitors.
High Fidelity
For the high-fidelity design, I selected and customized a Squarespace theme that aligned with the planned design, prioritizing usability and flexibility. I applied the company’s logo colors and established informal branding guidelines for typography, imagery, and layout. I customized the CSS to enhance the theme and achieve a polished look. I also ensured the site was fully responsive across desktop and mobile devices. Before project completion, I authored detailed handoff documentation to guide future designers in maintaining and expanding the website, covering the custom CSS rules I had created and overall design considerations.
Final
The completed website introduced Overseas Food Trading LLC with a clean, professional homepage that clearly communicated the company’s mission and services. The sustainability section highlighted the company’s eco-conscious practices and gave the site a distinctive voice. Contact and services pages simplified communication with potential clients, while consistent branding tied the entire experience together into a cohesive, credible online presence.
Takeaways
This project had a direct, positive impact by establishing the company’s online presence, allowing potential clients and partners to understand the goals and missions of Overseas Trading. From a design perspective, I developed skills in creating brand identity from scratch and adapting it to align with company values. I strengthened my expertise in CMS-based development and custom CSS styling, while also documenting processes to ensure scalability and maintainability. Most importantly, the project reinforced the value of aligning design decisions with business objectives, showing how researched and planned UI and UX can support both the viewer experience and brand storytelling.
