Igniting Excellence: unveiling Woodsman’s brand, website and the photography journey
From feel to real. A duality-driven website for sustainable home heating.
On the back of our ongoing work rebranding Woodsman, we were tasked with a complete overhaul of their website. The new site not only needed to reflect the updated visual identity, but significant work was carried out to improve the user experience and create a tool to be used industry-wide by retailers—regardless of the brand being sold.
The rebrand introduced a strong concept of duality—a dichotomy between the feelings evoked by the warm feeling of a classic log burner, and the real facts and figures that make log burners a sustainable and cost-effective solution to home heating—speaking to both the emotional and rational consumers.
A major part of the client’s brief for this project, was a ‘home heating calculator’ where a more honest approach to marketing specifications was especially important—avoiding the inflated specifications commonly used throughout the industry. This raw honesty fit perfectly into the ‘real’ aspect of the brand.
Accessible from anywhere on the website and based on scientific research carried out by Woodsman, the calculator consists of a four-step process where the user enters their region, the age of their home, and the area requiring heating. The user is then presented with their ideal kilowatt number and the corresponding range of appropriate Woodsman fires.
This concept is most evident on the product pages themselves, with a more feeling oriented features side, and a more fact-based specifications side. The features side uses the lighter ash background colours with the more emotive humanist sans serif typography and photographic images—while the specifications side uses the dark steel colour palette, stark neo-grotesque and minimal, schematic style line drawings and technical installation diagrams.
The use of micro-interactions and smooth animations help bridge the changes between the ‘real’ and ‘feel’ elements throughout the site.
A strong brand message is weaved throughout the site, using the visually stunning brand photography paired with strong copy—reflective of every other brand touch-point for Woodsman. Three main landing pages were developed for specific digital marketing requirements.
The successful result of this project was truly down to the trust established between us and our client—allowing us to push boundaries in an industry seemingly stuck in its ways. The website has been met with glowing reviews from consumers and retail staff nation-wide.
The history of Woodsman, their hand-made quality, and sustainability of wood fires—all working to not only tell the Woodsman brand story—but regain the popularity log burners once had pre heat pumps.
The duality concept is littered throughout the site, using subtle plays between the two brand typefaces paired with the lights and darks in the updated colour palette, we played with the balance between the two personalities.
