Forever legendary, Zildjian remains at the vanguard of music. By reimagining how cymbals can be experienced online, we partnered with the Zildjian family of brands to create a powerful brand commerce experience that’s in tune with musicians no matter where they are in their lifelong journey.
THE CHALLENGE
The Zildjian, Vic Firth and Balter brands are each unique from a point of history, meaning and product – and each has its own brand expression aligned to its promise.
While the brand requirement was centered around bringing them together, we also needed to find a solution that lets each brand be itself.
Equally important, we needed a scalable solution that works across brands to offer a unified, best-in-class experience that enables deep engagement, long-term loyalty, actionable commerce and the ability to shop across brands with ease.
Additionally, with musicians’ preference for trial before purchase, Zildjian needed to put their products in the virtual hands of musicians who are unable to check them out in-store.
THE VISION
For 400 years, Zildjian has shaped sound, inspiring generations of musicians.
Since today’s brands can’t rest on legacy, we created a modern music epicenter that elevated and simplified the shopping experience, connecting all of Zildjian’s brands together for the first time.
The redesigned site fused rich content — from sample sounds to brand storytelling and live performance videos — with favorite products, nurturing a lifelong love of playing through education and personalization while setting the standard for how artists find their sound.
Three distinct brands. One design system. One simple checkout.
The destination for drummers everywhere.
THE APPROACH
Following a competitive proposal process where we explored customer insights, journeys and initial creative concepts, we proposed a three phase project to fill knowledge gaps and build on work from the proposal stage.
Partnering with a Creative Director and team, I shaped the experience strategy, vision, content design and journey storytelling for the pitch; upon winning the proposal, I played a leading role in scoping and planning the work. Following this, I led the Discover and Define phases, then planned and provided strategic oversight for the Design phase as senior design team members assumed day-to-day management roles.
Stakeholder Workshops
Content Analysis
Product Catalog
Feature Requirements
Content Requirements
Creative Mood Boards
Information Architecture
Product Menu Taxonomy
UX/UI Concept Exploration
Conceptual Prototypes
Wireframes & Design Comps
Style & Pattern Library
Functional Prototypes
Usability Testing
CMS Training Materials
THE IMPACT
For the Zildjian family of brands, we created a modern music epicenter that fused rich content with favorite products, nurturing a lifelong love of playing through education and personalization while setting a new standard for how artists find their sound.
Distinct brands merged into a single unified brand commerce platform
Increase in average number of unique pages viewed during each visit
Additional time on average that each visitor spent on the site during each visit
