In Process: Rick Martinez
How WOTW helped take the chef and cookbook author’s website to a place that accurately reflects his personality, approach and culinary talent.
Rick Martinez is a cook, writer and pit master with a deep love of Mexican culture and cuisine. He spends as much time as possible eating his way around Mexico. He is the host of the companion video series Mi Cocina and Sweet Heat, both on the Food52 YouTube channel and Pruébalo on the Babish Culinary Universe channel. He also co-hosts the Borderline Salty podcast with Carla Lalli Music, is a regular contributor to The New York Times, and teaches live, weekly cooking classes for the Food Network Kitchen. He currently resides in Mazatlán with his dog, Choco.
Rick reached out to us because he had a legacy site — one that no longer served its purpose in the modern technological age — and wanted a complete rebrand. He also has a new book called Mi Cocina, which hit shelves at the beginning of May, and he’s currently on a book tour. This was just the push he needed to get him moving on a new site with a new design and new branding.
Rick had a particular idea of how he wanted this new site to come together and specific goals that he wanted to be achieved in the new build.
They included:
Featuring his new book front and center
Incorporating a video series that goes hand-in-hand with chapters of his new book
Announcing his book tour for Mi Cocina
Getting him on the NYT Best Sellers List!
Here’s what he didn’t love about his old site (below):
Dated/not technologically advanced
No design elements, just black text over a white background with some imagery here and there
No information devoted to his new book/book tour
Didn’t showcase his personality/personal style
The old Rick Martinez home page was plain and boring, and didn’t reflect any type of personal brand or culinary aesthetic.
The About page features no special information about Rick or his upcoming projects. It’s also very stale — black and white with few colors, which doesn’t reflect Rick’s personality at all.
The Video page is very bare-bones when it comes to content and design. It’s also not very easy to navigate, and doesn’t feature any CTAs that engage the user and encourage them to continue browsing.
The before Contact page is very plain, and doesn’t engage the visitor. Also looks like a Squarespace template.
Here’s how we’re working to improve Rick’s site and meet his goals.
Bringing in beautiful and colorful live and still imagery on every single page of the site
Featuring his new book front and center and providing a CTA to find out more about and/or purchase the book
Announcing his book tour and listing out the tour dates so that users can be informed, save the information, and learn more
Displaying his video series so that users have a sense of engagement and can interact with the content directly on the site
Incorporating deep, rich, lively colors anywhere and everywhere on the site to really speak to Rick’s inner soul and personality
Making the site user-friendly by having navigation that is bright and easy to use
We see an immediate shift in the About page, which features bright new colors and vibrant imagery. We also get a first peek at the new navigation, which brings in fresh design elements through new fonts.
We improved the Video page by updating the thumbnail images, again bringing in elements of the new design. There’s also a filter on the left side of the page, so visitors can search by category if they choose.
Here, we see how good design can make significant changes to pages that normally wouldn’t stand out on their own. The new Contact page brings in a personal element by including a photo of Rick with his dog, Choco, and is naturally livened up by the new colors and fonts.
The new Buy Now page makes it easy for visitors to buy Rick’s cookbook, plus a permanent button on the navigation bar means they’re always one click away from this major CTA.
The new site features a dedicated page for Rick’s podcast, Borderline Salty. (Give it a listen!)
The press and media page is easy to read, engaging, and makes incorporates new design elements while still letting the links and thumbnails capture the visitor’s attention.
We are so thrilled with how beautifully Rick’s new site turned out, and he is too! Our team was really able to dig in and create something beautiful that checked off all of Rick’s needs as well as brought in his personal style and showed off his vibrant personality. We created several new pages for this rebrand as well as refreshed and updated all of the pages from his existing site to give Rick something that he could be proud of and show off. We’re proud to show it off too!.
Here’s a full look at the home page scroll, or visit the new Rick Martinez site to take it all in.
