Change 01
Brand voice applied to navigation
"Blog" became "Blogfish." FishFinder became a named utility-nav anchor. Off-Centered Society moved from buried footer to persistent utility row. The navigation itself became a brand artifact.
Change 02
Four lines of business surfaced
Brewery, distillery (Spirits), restaurant (Chesapeake & Maine), brewpub (Brewings & Eats), and the Inn each got distinct IA presence under Hospitality & Visit — not folded into a generic Locations bucket.
Change 03
Drinks mega menu introduced
Flat product list replaced with a two-panel mega menu: L1 (Brewery / Spirits / Canned Cocktails / Recipes) → L2 columns. Spirits and Canned Cocktails got first-class nav presence for the first time.
Change 04
Contact & Support separated
FAQ, contact forms, and OCS-specific support were buried in About Us. Now a standalone primary nav item — reducing the cognitive load of About Us and giving support content a findable home.
Change 05
Utility row created for brand programs
FishFinder, Newsletter Sign-Up, Off-Centered Society, and Boston Beer Brand links moved to a persistent utility row above the main nav — giving brand programs top-of-page presence without competing for primary nav slots.
1
"Blogfish" over "Blog." The generic "Blog" label signals a content afterthought. "Blogfish" is instantly recognizable as DFH — it costs no findability (users still read it as editorial content) and gains brand specificity. It also signals that this isn't just a press room, it's a distinct brand voice channel.
2
Option 3 (Thematic) and Option 6 (Quirky) were eliminated early. Labels like "Tales from the Sea" or "The Catch" score high on brand but fail findability — a first-time visitor from national media doesn't know what "The Catch" is. The noun-based backbone (Option 2) gave us an orienting structure, with selective brand naming applied only at points of genuine differentiation.
3
FishFinder moved to utility nav as a named brand anchor. The beer locator tool is a core brand expression — DFH named it and marketed it. Burying it in a dropdown treated it like a feature. Moving it to the persistent utility row gives it top-of-page presence as a standalone program, reinforcing the brand voice decision that named it in the first place.
4
Off-Centered Society surfaced from footer to utility row. OCS is DFH's loyalty and membership program — a primary commercial and community driver. It was invisible in the earlier nav. The utility row gives it persistent presence without taking a primary nav slot, keeping the main navigation oriented toward discovery rather than account management.
6
Naming frameworks evaluated before final nav structure locked
+1
Primary nav items added (Contact & Support separated from About Us)
+4
Utility row items surfaced — brand programs given top-of-page presence
1
Brand-voice nav label applied where it added meaning — Blogfish
1
Two-panel system scales across product lines. The L1 rail (Brewery / Spirits / Canned Cocktails / Recipes) is a single interaction pattern that can accommodate any new product category without restructuring the nav. Each L1 selection loads its own L2 column configuration — keeping the beer catalog's depth without imposing it on every Drinks visitor.
2
Spirits and Canned Cocktails got first-class nav presence. In the earlier nav, the spirits line was either absent or folded into a beer-release context ("Full Proof Spirits" buried in a Release Calendar). The two-panel system gives Spirits its own L1 entry — equal structural weight to Brewery — reflecting DFH's commercial reality as a multi-product drinks company.
3
"2024 Release Calendar" renamed to a stable label. A year-specific heading guaranteed nav staleness — every January it would require an update or read as outdated. The redesign moves release calendar content into contextual product sections under each L1 category, removing the maintenance dependency and keeping the nav architecture evergreen.
4
FishFinder anchored inside Drinks. The beer locator is both a utility and a brand expression — it deserves presence inside the product navigation, not just the utility row. A persistent "Find beer near you → FishFinder" footer inside the Brewery panel connects product discovery to physical purchase without pulling users away from the main nav flow.
1 → 4
Product categories with dedicated nav presence (Brewery, Spirits, Cocktails, Recipes)
2-panel
Scalable mega menu system — any new product line slots in without nav restructure
Evergreen
Year-specific "2024 Release Calendar" label eliminated — nav stays accurate without annual updates
Dual
FishFinder anchored in both utility row (persistent) and Brewery panel (contextual)