Ellie'sCajun kitchen
Ellie’sCajunKitchen is a Pop-up Shop and Catering Service where customers can enjoy ordering local, homestyle and wholesome Cajun, Creole and Soul Cuisine.
Role: Brand Designer, UX/UI Designer, Web Designer
Timeline: 2024 (Ongoing client project)
Tools: Squarespace, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Canva
Create a warm, inviting digital presence for a local Cajun
restaurant that captures the essence of Southern hospitality while
driving online orders, catering inquiries, and building community connection.
THE cHALLENGE...Empathize
Research Approach
Customer Interviews
To understand the people who would engage with Ellie's Cajun Kitchen — both as catering clients and pop-up customers — I conducted a mixed-methods research approach combining direct user interviews with competitive analysis of local food businesses and catering services in the Oklahoma City area.
I studied how similar small, local food brands present themselves online, specifically examining how they handle catering inquiries, communicate their menu, and build trust with first-time customers. A key challenge I identified early was that many small catering businesses rely on word-of-mouth alone, leaving potential clients with no reliable way to inquire, browse, or book online — creating friction that drives them to larger, less personal competitors.
Key research questions I set out to answer:
What does a corporate event planner or HR coordinator actually need when searching for a catering option?
What makes a local food brand feel trustworthy and worth trying for a first-time customer?
What barriers prevent people from inquiring about catering, and how might a website reduce those barriers?
How important is food variety and cultural diversity to team event planners?
Research Approach
I conducted interviews with participants who matched the target customer profile — event coordinators, HR professionals, and office managers who regularly organize food for team gatherings. Sessions focused on current catering habits, pain points with existing vendors, and what would make them feel confident booking a new caterer.
Key themes that emerged:
Responsiveness was the number one frustration — caterers who take days to reply to inquiries lose the booking entirely.
Planners wanted transparent pricing upfront, even as a ballpark, to quickly assess whether a caterer fit their budget before investing time in a conversation.
There was widespread fatigue with generic catering options — participants were tired of sandwich platters and pizza and actively looked for food that would feel special and memorable to their teams.
Multicultural teams meant that diverse, flavorful menus were a genuine competitive advantage — Cajun and Creole cuisine stood out as exciting and crowd-pleasing.
A clean, professional-looking website was treated as a trust signal — if the website felt outdated or hard to navigate, it reflected poorly on the business's reliability.
Customer Interviews
Define
Persona Development
Problem Statements
Through research synthesis, one primary user emerged to anchor the Ellie's Cajun Kitchen design experience.
Meet Jennifer Martinez — "The Corporate Foodie" - "I need reliable and unique catering for my team events without the hassle."
Age: 37 | Gender: Female | Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Occupation: HR Director at a mid-size company | Income: $120,000/year
Jennifer coordinates monthly team lunches, quarterly all-hands meetings, and special company celebrations. She's tried several local caterers with mixed results and is actively looking for a consistent, go-to option she can depend on. She values food that feels impressive and intentional — something that reflects well on her and resonates with her multicultural staff. She uses tools like ezCater and Sam's Club as fallbacks but wants a relationship with a real caterer who communicates well and shows up consistently.
She’s aiming to find a reliable caterer for recurring company events serving 30–50 people, consisting of impressive, flavorful food, with an easy, responsive inquiry and ordering process. Long-term she aims to curate a catering relationship with a vendor she can trust.
She’s currently frustrated with Catering companies that often don't respond promptly to inquiries, tired of defaulting to boring sandwich platters and pizza and aims to find a caterer that can accommodate headcount for smaller events.
Persona Development
With Jennifer's goals and frustrations defined, I anchored the design around the following core problem statements:
How Might We:
How might we make the catering inquiry process feel as easy and immediate as placing an online order?
How might we communicate Ellie's Cajun Kitchen's personality and food quality in a way that makes Jennifer feel confident booking without having tasted the food yet?
Problem Statements
Ideate
Brainstorming
Storyboarding
User Flows
With Jennifer's problem statements in mind, I moved into divergent ideation using rapid sketching and mind mapping to explore what the Ellie's Cajun Kitchen website experience could be. Ideas included:
A "Get a Quote" CTA prominently placed on the homepage, eliminating the need to hunt for contact information
A catering menu page with per-person pricing ranges displayed upfront to immediately address Jennifer's budget question
A "How It Works" section breaking the catering booking process into 3 simple steps to reduce perceived friction
A photo-forward gallery of real food and pop-up events to build trust and appetite visually
A testimonials section highlighting repeat corporate clients to validate reliability
A signature dish spotlight using storytelling to communicate Cajun and Creole food culture, making the brand feel warm and personal rather than transactional
After narrowing by feasibility and impact, I focused the design on: warm, inviting visual storytelling, a frictionless catering inquiry path, and a menu presentation that makes the food feel special and worth choosing.
Brainstorming
I storyboarded Jennifer's core journey: she's been tasked with organizing the company's monthly team lunch → googles local catering options → finds Ellie's Cajun Kitchen → lands on the homepage and immediately feels the warmth and personality of the brand → scrolls to the catering section and sees menu highlights with per-person pricing → clicks "Get a Quote" and fills out a simple inquiry form → receives a prompt response and books with confidence → her team raves about the food and she bookmarks the site for next month.
This storyboard surfaced two critical design priorities — the first impression of the homepage needed to communicate both trustworthiness and culinary personality, and the path to inquiry needed to be short and obvious.
Storyboarding
I mapped Jennifer's primary user flow: homepage → catering page → menu preview → inquiry/contact form → confirmation. A secondary flow covered a customer discovering the pop-up shop schedule and retail products. These flows shaped the site's navigation structure and informed which pages needed the most visual and copy investment.
User Flows
Prototype
Low Fidelity
Branding & UI Kit
Final Design
I began with hand-sketched wireframes to establish layout logic and content hierarchy before any visual decisions were made. Key low-fidelity decisions included placing the catering CTA above the fold on the homepage, leading the menu page with photos before descriptions, and keeping the contact/inquiry form to five fields or fewer to reduce abandonment. These wireframes were reviewed against Jennifer's user flow before moving to high fidelity.
Low Fidelity
Ellie's Cajun Kitchen's visual identity was built around Southern warmth meets modern polish — the brand needed to feel homestyle and inviting without looking amateur or outdated.
Color Palette: Rich burgundy and warm cream as the primary brand colors, evoking the depth of Cajun cuisine and the warmth of a home kitchen. Deep charcoal for text to keep things grounded and legible.
Typography: A elegant DM Sans for headings to communicate heritage and craft, paired with a clean Beth Ellen for body copy and navigation for modern readability.
Photography Style: Warm, golden-toned food photography that makes every dish look rich and craveable.
Components: Designed UI kit including buttons, navigation, menu cards, inquiry form, photo gallery tiles, all built for warmth, consistency, and mobile responsiveness.
Branding & UI Kit
Final Design
The final design brought together the brand system and wireframe architecture into a fully realized website experience built on Squarespace. The homepage leads with a bold hero image and a clear brand promise, followed by a catering highlights section and a direct path to inquiry. The menu page leads with photography and surfaces pricing context early. The overall experience communicates what makes Ellie's Cajun Kitchen special — real, homestyle food made with care — in a way that gives Jennifer the confidence to book without hesitation.
Test
Feedback
Priority Revisions
Reflections
I conducted usability testing with participants matching Jennifer's profile — event coordinators and office managers who regularly book catering — using the live Squarespace site. Participants were asked to complete two tasks: (1) find catering options and determine whether the service fit their budget, and (2) submit a catering inquiry.
Key feedback themes:
The homepage warmth landed immediately — participants described it as feeling "inviting" and "like real food, not corporate catering."
Participants wanted to see pricing information sooner — they appreciated that the catering section existed but wanted a starting price or per-person range visible before clicking deeper.
The inquiry form was well-received for its simplicity, but one participant wanted a dropdown for event type (lunch, dinner, celebration) to feel like the form was tailored to their needs.
Mobile experience needed attention — several participants noted that the menu photos felt cramped on smaller screens and some text was hard to read over image overlays.
Testimonials were noticed and trusted — participants said seeing real client feedback made them more comfortable reaching out.
Feedback
Based on test findings, I prioritized the following revisions:
Added per-person pricing range to the catering section homepage preview — surfacing budget context earlier to reduce friction for planners like Jennifer who need to qualify options quickly.
Added an event type dropdown to the inquiry form — making the form feel more intentional and reducing the open-ended nature of the initial contact.
Improved mobile menu page layout — restructured photo and text stacking for smaller screens and increased text contrast over image overlays for legibility.
Clarified the catering service area — added a brief note about service radius on the catering page to prevent inquiries from out-of-range clients.
Priority Revisions
The Ellie's Cajun Kitchen project was one of the most personal and rewarding case studies in my portfolio — designing for a brand I know intimately gave me deep insight into the challenge of translating a real, lived experience into a digital one. The biggest lesson was that warmth is a design choice, not just a feeling — it shows up in color, typography, photography, copy tone, and how quickly a user can find what they need.
If I were to continue developing this project, I'd explore building out an online ordering system for retail products, a pop-up event calendar with reminders, and a loyalty or referral program for repeat corporate clients like Jennifer. I'd also invest in A/B testing the homepage hero to measure whether leading with food photography or the catering value proposition drives more inquiry form completions.
This case study reinforced that local food businesses deserve digital experiences that match the quality and heart of their product — and that a well-designed website can be the difference between a missed booking and a loyal client.
Reflections
