Responses by Raffael Velluti, creative director and founder, Vendredi Society.

Background: The purpose of Vendredi Society’s website is to reflect our values and distinctive model, serving as the cornerstone of our brand strategy. The site aims to generate visual impact, highlight our culture and provide immersive experiences that align with long-term objectives. By adopting a strategy inspired by product marketing and SaaS startups, the website articulates a value proposition centered around the benefits and features of our business model.

The target audience includes brands with high objectives seeking strategic and creative partnerships to achieve significant impact. The website is designed to appeal to businesses that value quality, innovation and a collaborative approach. It aims to communicate our culture of excellence, performance and ambition while maintaining accessibility and friendliness, making it a compelling platform for potential clients and partners.

Design core: The core features of our website include a visually impactful design, extensive use of 3-D elements, dynamic motion design and high-quality photography. The site is structured around a modular system that enables flexibility and easy updates. The interface is designed to be both creative and user-friendly, emphasizing subtlety and clarity. The design elements include a mix of saturated, high-contrast photos; a clean, minimalist user interface; and dynamic animations that enhance user engagement. The site’s design leverages visual codes from software and iOS to create a product-oriented navigation experience.

Challenges: Creating a modular system that allows for flexibility while maintaining a high level of design quality. This involved a detailed UX analysis to categorize different content blocks and create a comprehensive style guide. Ensuring smooth interactions and seamless transitions between pages without compromising the visual appeal and user experience was also a significant challenge. The integration of advanced 3-D elements and motion design required extensive iteration and collaboration among the creative team.

Special navigational features: The website features a unique navigation system inspired by Apple’s operating system, designed to make all content accessible with a single click. Unlike traditional portfolio websites with intrusive menus, Vendredi Society’s site adopts a product-oriented design approach. This includes an innovative video player inspired by video editing tools, and various animated elements that enrich the interface with microinteractions, enhancing both the visual appeal and functionality. These elements, developed using tools like Lottie and GSAP, add a dynamic dimension to the user experience.

Technology: The website was built using a variety of technologies and programming languages. Key components include:

• PostCSS and Vanilla JS using Modular for modular functionality.
• swup for seamless page transitions.
• GSAP for advanced animations.
• Lenis for scroll management, integrated with a custom JS module.
• Timber as the PHP framework, and WordPress for content management.
• Advanced image and video optimization techniques using the <picture> tag and srcset for responsive images.
• JavaScript with the native video API for custom video management.
• Houdini and Redshift for creating and animating 3-D elements.