A studio site that shows the drawings

First week

Three weeks and one page is a tight frame, so the first meeting set the order of the page instead of a mood board. We chose four projects and for each one the drawing, the model and the finished photo, in that order, because that is how the studio talks to clients.

Decisions

The page reads top to bottom like a short visit to the studio: who they are, how a project goes, four projects, and a simple enquiry form that asks for the site, the budget range and the time frame. The drawings are large and sharp, with captions in the studio's own words.

We wanted the site to look like our desks, not like a brochure.

There are no renders anywhere on the page. Every image is either a drawing, a model or a photo of a finished house.

We kept the build simple so the studio can own it: one CMS collection for projects, each with a drawing, a model, a photo and three lines of text. Adding a project takes them about twenty minutes, and the page keeps its order without anyone touching the layout. The enquiry form sends to the shared studio inbox, so the first reply never waits for one person.

Launch

The page went live on the planned Friday, a week before the open studio evening. Enquiries rose by 58% over the next two months, the average visit lasted 2.4 minutes, and the studio told us the new enquiries were closer to the work they want to do. They have since added a fifth project themselves.