VETROSELECTED WORK
WEBSITE REDESIGN
The project
A new look and a clearer way to explore dinner, private events and catering at an Italian restaurant on Jamaica Bay.
What I did
I designed Vetro’s website alongside its sister property, Russo’s on the Bay, and worked with a developer on the build. The two sites share a design system, but Vetro needed to feel like somewhere you could come for dinner or a drink.
The previous website
The old site gave dinner, catering, private rooms and takeout similar weight without making their relationship clear. Menus were spread across separate pages, and the private rooms sat under a page called Catering. I reorganized the site around what a visitor came to do, with reservations always within reach.
A shared system, a different feel
I carried the large serif headings and layout structure across from Russo’s, then gave Vetro a warmer palette of bronze, wine, cream and espresso. Libre Caslon Display connects the two sites; Karla gives Vetro’s smaller text a more casual feel than Russo’s Archivo. The Vetro wordmark replaces the prominence of the Russo’s shield.
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Making dinner easy to find
I made the homepage introduce the restaurant first, with the Vetro name, the dining room and a Reserve a table button. The navigation separates Restaurant, Private Events, Venues and Catering. Menus now live on one page with tabs, so visitors can switch between dinner, brunch, drinks and seasonal options without searching through old pages.
Choosing a room
For event planners, I put capacities beside the room names instead of burying them in paragraphs. The venues page brings the spaces together, from the Wine Cellar to the Rooftop and Waterfront Veranda. Larger parties have a clear route to Russo’s, keeping that connection useful to guests as well as visible in the design.
Showing more of the restaurant
The dining room’s colored glass and the Murano Room gave the homepage a story specific to Vetro. I brought those details into the page alongside a weekly schedule, the waterfront setting and practical location information. The catering page has its own purpose, with ordering and pickup information presented together.
Designed for the smaller screen
On a phone, the reservation button stays prominent, menu tabs scroll across the screen and room information stacks into a single column. These recordings show the homepage, menus and venues at phone size.
The finished site
Vetro now has a visual identity of its own within the same family as Russo’s. The pages give diners a direct path to menus and reservations, while private events and catering have space to explain what is available.