Starbucks Corporation is an American global coffee company and Italian-style coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. The first Starbucks opened in Seattle on March 30, 1971 by three partners. The company has expanded rapidly, in the 1990s, Starbucks was opening a new store every workday, and it is now the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 19,972 stores in 60 countries. Starbucks does not just sell coffee beverages and coffee beans, it is also offering fine pastries and other delectable treats as well as mugs and tumblers.

The company’s website is used for advertising and promoting their products through texts with pictures, videos and links to other pages.

The colour and typeface of the website

The background of the site is white and it has no boarder around it. “White areas quickly stand out to the scanning eye as likely content areas.” (Hunt, n.d., Leave white space in web page layouts)

The writing of the website is mainly in green and black. It lacks a bit of colour. The Starbucks brand is very much about lifestyle, and its use of too little colour in a website makes it look boring and inert. 

 

 

The same font (probably Arial) is used for the whole page. According to Wysocki (2004) the use of typeface is “a major visual strategy for a text’s composers”. (p. 127) Different font tells the viewers this is a different type of information.

Website layout

When you open Starbucks’ website, the first thing that pops up in the middle of the page is a video advertising. On the right hand side of the video, there are 4 promoting videos altogether. When you hover the cursor over the videos, the background colour changes to green and a brief description of the video appears. According to Wysocki “a video sequence can thus be smoothly integrated into a scene, making it look as though parts of the screen “come alive”” (Wysocki 2004, p.136).

Above the video are the company logo and the headers of the page. According to Nielsen (2006), readers normally won’t read the website content word by word, they often read in an “F- shaped” pattern, which across the upper part of the content area. The company logo is a green outlined siren. As Wysocki (2004) explained that “the colour, shape and images of a logo will persuade the viewers who see the logo to think of the company” (p. 124). The Starbucks logo now has successfully become the famous welcoming face of Starbucks. 

The designer of the website capitalized the headers and made the size of the fond bigger than the rest of the content, in that way, the headers are standing out and has drawn the readers’ attention. The title of the headers are in green and with black subtitle - “coffee”, “menu”, “coffeehouse”, “responsibility”, “card” and “shop”. When you click on each title, a black background dropdown with more detailed links. “The solid – coloured shapes can echo the overall shape of text on a page, emphasizing the geometric organization and order of a text.” (Wysocki, 2004, p. 131)

Underneath the video, there is “What’s new” section. It has 6 pictures with a title on each of them. Those pictures list the new products and promotions that the stores are having. The title is in white writing and black background. When you click on anyone of the title, once again the picture will turn to a description of the corresponding product or promotion with black background and the title bar changes into green. This changing of colours is effectively catching the viewers’ eye and getting their attention. The brighter colour green gives the fresh feeling to viewers, and makes them want to try out the new stuff.

At the bottom of the homepage, it is the site map. When you move the mouse to the titles, the background change to the website’s main theme colour – green. 

A link to another area of the page

The link to another area of the website I have chosen to analyze is this “Salted Caramel Mocha” under “What’s new” section. When I clicked into this page, the first thing that caught my eyes was a photograph of a cup of coffee with cream and caramel syrup. According to Wysocki (2004), different aspects of photographs are used by composers for achieving persuasive ends. And this photo with a cup of mocha is very tempting, which definitely makes you want to try it out.

Basically, this page has included the recipe, ingredients and choices of the sizes, milk and cream that available to the customers. The recipe is placed on the top of this page, which is in italic writing. And the photo is on the left hand side. Once again, this page followed the “F – shaped” pattern.

Conclusion

This Starbucks website has plenty good features for the readers to explore. The texts work well with the visual aspects and the contents are in good and simple sentence structure. The only thing I feel may need improvement is the colour use of the website. It looks quite plain and flat. Overall, it is a classic website that you can enjoy.

References

Hunt, B. (n.d.). Colour in web design. Retrieved 10 October, 2012 from http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-design/colour/

Nielson, J. (2007). Writing for the web: Research on how users read on the web and how authors should write their web pages. Retrieved 10 October, 2012 from http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/

Wysocki, A. F. (2004). The multiple media of texts: How onscreen and paper texts incorporate words, images and other media. In C. Bazerman and P. Prior, (Eds.) what writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices, pp. 123 – 163, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Eribaum.