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Arthur T. Gregorian Oriental Rugs
Opportunity
Three generations of the Gregorian family have built their reputation as one of the world's most respected authorities on the history, lore and collection of fine oriental rugs.
As merchants, they sell thousands of rugs from a beautifully renovated colonial millworks in New England. They wanted a website that didn't sell rugs, but educated and serviced the customer.
Engagement
We chose the look and feel of an expedition to reflect the Gregorian's Armenian roots and their many travels to the Far East.
With several books on oriental rugs to their credit, and a beautiful facility, visual imagery for the site was abundant. So to keep images small and quick to download, we used a background palette of rich earthtones reminiscent of their native country with tiny thumbnail images that could be enlarged for detail.
Our main goal was to evoke the rug buying experience: tactile, visual, and sensual. To achieve this, we used Silk Road imagery and the romance of storytelling.
We wanted users to enjoy browsing the family's world famous rug collection. We overlaid a small round detail section onto each rug, like looking through a magnifying glass.
Education material is scattered throughout the site, in the least expected places. A site to explore and enjoy, users can find many ways to interact. There's even a glossary of rug weaving terms and a way to add to it.
To meet the goal of servicing customers, convenient service request forms are placed in each of the customer care sections.
The language and tone of the site is designed to draw the user into the experience of shopping for an expensive oriental rug without ever offering to sell them one.
Perspective
The timeless beauty of this site continues to draw visitors and develop sales for Gregorian. Simple content updates are handled by the client.