theartofsake.com 2.0

theartofsake.com Has a New Look!
Hello beloved friends and customers of The Art of Sake! Some of you may have realised we upgraded our website since late 2022 and have given many feedback while we were experimenting with different new features and looks - again, we appreciate all your feedbacks and please keep 'em coming! But we're here to formally announce the launch of theartofsake.com 2.0 - read on to see what kind of improvements you can expect as a patron!

It Was Time for an Upgrade
theartofsake.com 1.0 has served us well and has been well-received by customers for the longest time, but in late 2021, we felt that it was time for a new look. Not only that, we were determined to identify all the gaps and room for improvement we can find in terms of user experience and shopability. Hence we did a top to bottom examination – from page loading time, to image optmisation, consistency of product information, right down to the font type, colour and size! The current live site you are seeing now is theartofsake.com 2.0 – it’s cleaner,  more professional, more cheerful, while retaining our identity as an expert sake retailer. And most importantly, a better and smoother shopping experience for you!

We Finally Found Our Type
If you pay close attention, besides the change in certain layouts and structure, our website now has a more contemporary feel to it. With the help of our GEN Z Intern/Web Designer, we have enhanced the overall feel of the website with a simple but significant change – the typography!

The new font, Montserrat, adds a playful, yet welcoming and modern feel to it. And it wasn’t randomly chosen! Montserrat is versatile and can suit almost all situations. Whereas other popular fonts have limitations depending on the style of it. Examples like Bebas Neue or Abril Fatface can only be legible when it’s BIG when on display. And classic, time-tested fonts like Times New Romans and Arial are a bit too formal for a sake online store (and just a tad basic).

Just a FYI, our previous font choice was Assistant. Though modern and minimalistic, the font  felt too formal and “common”, which adds to the “word document” feel. The new quirky yet professional-looking font, perfectly encapsulates our identity as a company – fun and creative in the way we introduce sake to our customers, but always professional in our service, teachings and recommendations.

Banners and Images
To customers who have been shoping our sake mostly through your phone – this one’s for you. Our front-page banner is now optimised for both desktop and mobile!

TBH it’s been a long time coming lah, Amos has been bothered by the lack of optimisation ever since he was a customer, before he even joined the company.

Now, you no longer have to squint your eyes to view the rectangle banners meant for desktop users.

Did you know that images on a website are the second most frequently seen as you browse? Number 1 is the words (Typography) of course. But since images are second in-place, they have to be well optimised or if they’re not, they will cause your web browser to load our website slower which will affect your overall experience.

This is why having good, as optimised product images and images are one of our top priorities. An e-commerce store like us, heavily rely on product images to sell and that’s what we set out to ensure that they are all presentable but also optimised for web. Here are a few examples showcasing the old and the new images:

(Better) Organised Product Information

With a little bit of research, we managed to sort out and organised all the information into tabs, making it much easier for you as the user to read about our sake. The new format of product description is much neater & we hope that you liked it!

Above All Else
It’s important to us that we keep up with the times and make sure you enjoy shopping with us. With ecommerce’s ever-changing landscape & features, we have to fully utilise the tools available to us while continuously look for ways to improve your shopping experience. Happier shopping!