AtoZ Produce & Bakery

Ted and Robbi of AtoZ Produce and Bakery had an existing website, but they were having trouble using it, and needed a site that was simple and easy for them to update and make changes to. They also wanted to be able to have more control over the look and layout of the site.

We built their site on Craft, a content management system (CMS). With Craft, you add each type of content to the page — text, photo, map, etc— in a series of editable blocks. Not only is it simple and easy to use, this system means the user has more creativity and flexibility in what content they can include, and how the layouts will look. You can view a live preview as you work, making changes and updates more intuitive. You can even make changes on a phone or tablet as Craft has a fully-responsive control panel.

Craft was a good fit for Ted and Robbi, as it offers both flexibility and ease of use—great for busy people who don’t have time to learn a complicated CMS. We gave Robbi a series of video screencasts to help her navigate Craft and we’re pleased to see she has been able to make changes over the past few months since the site launched without any trouble.

AtoZ already had a typeface they used for their labels: Palatino. We used this old-style serif throughout the site, as we felt that Palatino was a good match for Ted and Robbi’s handmade, traditional ethos. Plus, it was already a part of their packaging, so it made sense to keep it for the sake of consistency.

We made sure the site had clear information for all the different aspects of their business: a bakery, farm, and a weekly pizza night. We also included a blog where they could share recipes and other projects.

Rather than have any staged, art-directed photos, we shot in a documentary style, working to capture the story of the farm and give a glimpse of what goes on, in day to day life as well as through the seasons. We didn’t include any posed portraits, but instead photos of Ted and Robbi as you will usually find them any day of the week—baking, cooking, plowing, threshing, and picking.

We wanted to give viewers a sense of the place and process as well as Ted and Robbi’s dedication to handcrafted breads (made with wheat that is grown, harvested and milled on the farm), organically grown produce, and their famous weekly pizza night that draws people from hours away to sample their wood-fired pizzas.