Web Design · 2024
A studio site that doesn't compete on adjectives.
Vanlig does quiet, premium work for clients who already know what good looks like. The site had to match; restraint as a loud statement.
Client
Vanlig Studio
Year
2024
Role
Design & build
Scope
Studio site, case archive
Context
Vanlig is a small, ambitious creative studio; the kind that cares about kerning on a Tuesday. Their old site looked like everyone else's: big hero image, three-column services grid, a carousel. Everything said "studio," nothing said Vanlig.
They didn't want a flashy site. They wanted a site that felt like their work; calm, confident, composed. Something a creative director could open on a bad Monday and still respect.
The challenge
The challenge
Restraint is the hardest thing to design for. You can hide behind effects, gradients and motion; or you can let the work carry the page and design the silence around it. We chose silence. Every spacing decision had to earn its room.
How we worked
Space as a design element.
Typography carries the brand
We built the entire tone on a single display face with a generous tracking scale and careful hierarchy. No decorative type, no rotating slogans. The studio name and the work speak first; everything else is furniture.
A case archive that refuses to shout
Most studio work pages are galleries competing for attention. We made the archive feel like a library; generous margins, muted previews, metadata as the navigation. You have to lean in. That's the point.
Motion as punctuation, not pyrotechnics
We removed almost every animation the old site had. What's left is barely there; a reveal on scroll, a subtle parallax on the hero, a hover that doesn't jolt. Motion earns attention only where the content benefits from a breath.
Contact as the close, not the wall
The contact page isn't a form fortress; it's a single sentence, an email, and a studio photo. If you want to work with Vanlig you write a real message. The friction is the filter.
Studio site
Composition in practice.
What we shipped
Deliverables
Outcome
A site that acts like a portfolio, not a pitch.
The redesign did what Vanlig asked for: it stopped competing for attention and started qualifying it. The contact form sees fewer tyre-kickers and more real briefs. The studio sounds like itself; which, for a creative practice, is the whole job.
Restraint, out loud.
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