"A clean and natural grooming products site that makes me wish I had hair." —juror Kevin Flatt

"With thoughtful touches throughout, it feels like this site is actually paying attention. I felt guided through the entire experience." —juror Jacquie Moss

Overview: An online apothecary selling natural hair care products, Lavett & Chin wanted a Web presence that would build brand awareness, drive sales and collect data to help in future product development. With clean, white space and bright spots of color, this site accomplishes those goals while reflecting the company's fashionable, yet highly organic brand.

• 128-bit encrypted checkout and administration tools
• HTML and XML Flash content fed by PHP classes and MySQL database
• 4- to 5-month development time
• Intelligent advice engine for selecting products

Comments by Domani Studios:
"As a new company, Lavett & Chin had very little in the way of brand assets (photography, identity pieces, etc.), all we had to work from were a few bottle designs and a logo. So, the design of the site quickly became an opportunity to shape the brand, and we ran with it—performing a photo shoot of all products and ingredients, as well as orchestrating a film shoot to help portray this 'all-natural' company in the cleanest and most natural light possible.

"In terms of the navigation, our goal was to keep the site very simple. The client had a ton of information, but the products themselves needed to come off as natural, elegant and clean. What we didn't want was to clutter the site with an overload of information. So we chose to provide snippets of information up-front that would allow users to venture deeper and deeper as they became more interested.

"Once we began examining the products more specifically, it quickly became clear that potential customers were going to need some help deciding which product was right for their hair. Accordingly, we devised a recommendation tool to help educate customers. Based on the answers to a series of questions regarding hair type and grooming habits, the site returns a selection of appropriate products.

"We built this site on top of our proprietary commerce platform engineered specifically to integrate with Flash-heavy sites. Using a standard set of technologies, the software keeps visitors completely up to date on cart status; at no time do visitors need to leave the shopping experience to manage a cart on a separate page.

"On the administrative side of things, the software sends update e-mails, keeps track of orders, processes credit cards and helps with the fulfillment process. While being an aesthetically-rich visual experience, because it takes orders 24 hours a day, and makes the whole site extremely easy to manage, it's become almost like another employee."