Banfield Pet Hospital

Vancouver, Washington

Headquartered in Vancouver, WA, Banfield Pet Hospitals are one of the oldest veterinary care providers in the US. Owned by Mars Group, Banfield has expanded across the nation, found in every PetSmart, partnered with Amazon, and always innovating to offer the highest quality products.

PROJECT TYPE
UX • Visual

My Role

UX Designer
Visual Designer
Info Architect

Banfield was fortunate to flourish through 2020, despite the pandemic and the challenges it created. The product team was quick to develop and integrate virtual services, including Vet Chat and Virtual Visits; two new products that needed a fast launch with a full suite of promo campaigns. I was hired to assist in the launch with new landing pages, revamps of older pages, promo emails, and updated collateral items for clinic use.

Banfield has rather strict brand guidelines, especially where photography is concerned. I opted for mostly youthful shots with lots of smiling faces and pet snuggles. Although Banfield is a well established clinic, it’s far from outdated and leans heavily into modern and progressive trends, while maintaining and happy and positive image. As such, I was requested to use photos of people with tattoos, brightly colored hair, and bold fashion choices – a surprising and welcome direction for such a large, family chain.

UX / Website Design

The website is component-based, and even stricter than the brand itself. The design process was a little unorthodox, consisting of converting HTML components to workable designs in XD, bypassing any wireframing. It makes sense, though, since the components essentially serve as both low and high fidelity design elements within XD, and we were on a tight timeline. There was no need for moodboards, as the brand is highly developed, and prototyping wasn’t necessary since, again, everything is component based. A thorough understanding of the needs of the developers (more like content managers) and asset processing was essential.