Tourism on Tap: Craft your Travel

INTRO_
Tourism On Tap is the premier, “beer tourism” website for the casual, and hardcore traveller. Tourism on Tap allows every single user to explore any single map, of any single country, and find out what local beers, are the best in their respective cities. In an age of craft beer absolutely dominating the market, and with thirty-three percent of travellers binge drinking on average (According to google) Why not give these travellers something they actually want to drink!

TASK_
The task of this project was to not only creatively brand each country as its own beer empire, but also to create a fluid, engaging, and explorable user experience, and make it appealing and easy to use for every user with a pleasant user interface.

HURDLES_
In a day and age where beer is as big as it is. It’s really hard to know what people want. Everyone has their own taste. Not just in Canada, but in every other single country, there is it’s own unique beer culture. Craft beer is taking off all over the world, and I wanted to find a way to help promote it further (Go ahead, call me a hipster). Tourism On Tap is a massive, expanding project including over one hundred and fifty countries. The amount of beer research was immense in order to know just exactly what is the best, in each region of every country.

TOOLS_
Sketch (iOS), Adobe Photoshop, Principle (Animation), Adobe illustrator.

OPPORTUNITY_
As mentioned briefly before, this was a great opportunity to help travellers understand exactly what the best beer from each region of the world is. Most people don’t really know what to try because they simply don’t know via lack of the destination, and they do not speak the language. With Tourism on Tap, we can break the language barrier, over an ice cold beer. People don’t want to enjoy their vacations by visual queues alone, they want to taste the country!

THE PROCESS_
The first thing I did with this project was begin to conduct research. I started my research with interviews. I conducted a total of three in depth interviews with people who have been known to not only travel, but to also enjoy craft beer. Given the sensitive time duration of this project, this is all I had time for.

Some of the biggest insights I gained from the three interviews were :

• People want to feel culture through taste as well as visual queues
• People want to try beer / alcohal native to their countries when visiting
• It’s hard to know what local beer is best, if you don’t speak the language, or know the area.

Given this information. I knew I had to design something that translated well across the board, and would be easy to use for any user, from any country.
I conducted research regarding the best local beers, from all sorts of different countries. Again, given the time sensitivity of this project, the prototype only shows two countries (Canada and Germany) Which you will witness later on in this case study. I found out through a few rounds of survey, which local craft beers people preferred in their respective cities. These were the beers I decided to show in the prototype as well.

MOOD_ART DIRECTIONS_
Once I had conducted enough research to move forward, I began drawing together two different mood boards so I could spear head two different art directions. The first mood and art direction I wanted to demonstrate for this project was called, “Homespun Tales”

Homespun tales is the rustic
approach to fabricating old time stories that revolve around the place at hand. The old tales and legends you’d hear from your grandparents go into these regions, and the beers and spirits themselves. The mood really approaches the lore around each region and the beer representing it (This is the art direction I chose for the project).

The second mood and art direction I wanted to demonstrate is called, “Dashing and Daring”

Dashing and Daring is the no BS approach as to where you’re going, and what you’re getting. Ingredients from the region, where to get it, and how to get there. All compiled together with an elegant look and sleek finish. More of a high-end feel.

WHY_
The ‘Why’ (as us user interface designers call it) for this project had to be profound. I knew how many people this project could ultimately connect to.
I also knew that through my research, just how unique every beer culture is from every country.

The Why…

“TO SHOW THE UNIQUE BEER CULTURE OF EVERY COUNTRY”

VISUAL LANGUAGE_
Some of the visual language I would like to speak about that really stand out on this site are the movement, the colours, and the space.
The movement is quite bubbly, there is animations within the site, and the maps in use elevate when you click them.

The Colours are quite reminiscent of every hue of beer you can think of. Yellows and Amber in your ales, Nut browns and orange in your porters and sours.

The space is quite open, and easily explorable. There’s quite a bit of elements to click around and explore, with the use of maps involved, I wanted to user to be able to easily discover each region through an easy click of the mouse.

LOGO_
During this project I went through a few logo iterations as well. I was having trouble keeping the logo not cluttered. With the long name, “Tourism On Tap”, I kept finding that the logo was more or less jumbled most of the time.

Some of the logo iterations I did are above, with the final being on the far right. The Far right is simple, it dedicated itself to being a beer travel site, while being simple. Two beers clinking, with a mountainous sunset, that entices the user with a feeling of travel, and exploring.

DESIGN GUIDE_

After the mood and art direction were decided. It was time to start creating elements of my screens. Everything from the colour choice, to the buttons, sliders, type faces, type face sizes and weights, timers, graphics, imagery, and icons. My Style guide gives a brief description of what you will be presented with in the website while the style guide gives you a complete in depth look of every single organism, and also several choices regarding icons, font weights, and logo iterations. Below is the design guide for Tourism on Tap

PROTOTYPE_
The part of the prototype I am going to be showing you today was made on Principle. It’s a brief demonstration of the experience. Given that being said, there will be more to see in the future as this is an ever growing project.

CONCLUSION_

I had so much fun working on this project. I myself am an avid fan of craft beer and travel alike. I also love to help people as much as humanly possible. Given the opportunity to help travellers find the most unique tastes from every country, was challenging, but also rewarding. Although this project has definitely not concluded, I will be taking a quick break to have a cold one in the sun myself. Thanks for Reading.