Overhauling the Digital Presence for Signal & Grain
A full-stack rebuild that brought a craft distillery from 2018 aesthetics into a modern, image-rich experience — complete with an e-commerce integration and tasting room reservation system.
Signal & Grain
Crafting a digital experience as refined as the spirits.
The Challenge
Signal & Grain had outgrown their Squarespace site. With three locations, a growing DTC spirits line, and a tasting room booking system held together with Google Forms, they needed infrastructure that could scale. We rebuilt everything on Next.js with a headless CMS, custom e-commerce, and a reservation system that cut no-shows by 35%.
The design system started with typography and color. Signal & Grain's brand is warm and grounded — bourbon tones, clean serifs, generous whitespace. We translated that into 32 Tailwind tokens and 18 reusable components.
Every component was built mobile-first, tested on real devices, and documented in Storybook before it touched a production page.
Key metrics after launch:
• Page load: 4.8s → 1.2s
• Mobile conversion: +28%
• Tasting room bookings: +45%
• Cart abandonment: -18%
Early wireframe exploration
This isn't just a website — it's the backbone of how we run our business now. The booking system alone paid for the project in the first quarter.
— Jake Morrison, Founder of Signal & Grain
The dashboard before and after the redesign
Project walkthrough and client testimonial
## Performance Audit Results
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|--------|--------|-------|--------|
| LCP | 4.8s | 1.2s | -75% |
| FID | 180ms | 12ms | -93% |
| CLS | 0.25 | 0.02 | -92% |
| Lighthouse | 42 | 98 | +133% |
*All measurements taken on mobile 4G connection.*