Responses by Luke Vidamour, digital art director, The Potting Shed

Background: The site helps prospective clients get a feel for the experience of working with PF+A, a Guernsey, Channel Islands–based architecture and planning company, and to showcase its beautiful portfolio of work.

Highlights: The site is different for every user and every visit, as randomized header images load each time. Influenced by PF+A’s use of raw materials in its work, the site’s grid lines are exposed and are mainly comprised of white space—with a dash of the brand’s signature orange. The finishing touch is a flurry of simple lines and shapes that populate and randomly scroll, sometimes aligning with the other elements and sometimes not.

Challenges: As interesting as it is to make the loading images randomized, it is difficult to work with, as we had to hold back the desire to control every element of the page.

Navigational structure: We made it very simple. There are only five top level pages. With no contact page, all the information is in the footer, and the staff does not have individual pages. The company’s portfolio and news grids are displayed on single pages, and scrolling triggers many hover interactions and animations. This creates a more harmonious cross-screen experience, especially on a mobile device.

Anything new: We used Vue for live filters on the portfolio and team sections, which has been great to work with. We also saw some intuitive mobile scrolling on Apple’s new iPhone X page that inspired us to look differently at some classic mobile/desktop interactions. Overall, it’s a much more natural experience.

Technical features: We’ve been using October CMS for a couple of years now and have been really impressed with how it puts developers first. Its ease of use is perfect for PF+A, who will be updating content on a weekly basis.