Still / Motion
Two words, a red focus frame and one black-and-white face carry the whole pitch for a portrait studio.
01 Red slash. STILL / MOTION in light, spaced capitals; the slash is the first appearance of the signal red.
02 Focus frame. Four red brackets lock onto one eye, borrowed from a camera screen: the photographer's point of view.
03 Condensed STILL. An extremely tall, narrow sans in cream capitals, rigid and upright, more than half the screen high.
04 Italic reply. human. in a sweeping high-contrast italic serif, crossing the portrait as if written on the print.
05 One red button. Make something real is the only filled shape on the page, in the same red as the frame.
06 01 to 05 counter. A slim counter hints at five portraits taking turns in the hero, one face at a time.
- Sector
- Portrait studio
- Year
- 2026
- Work
- Homepage design
- Darkroom black#080808 · Background
- Paper white#F5F3EE · Type
- Record red#DF2227 · Accent
- Silver gelatin#7A7877 · In the photo
- Warm shadow#3C3030 · In the photo
About the project
The full write-up, if you want it. About 4 minutes.
01Brief and idea
The problem, and the one idea that answers it.1 min
The brief
A photographer's site is judged in the first second, and many open with a crowded grid that makes every picture smaller. Portrait clients are often nervous in front of a camera, too. The job here is to show range without clutter, make the studio feel warm rather than slick, and turn a browse into an enquiry about a sitting.
The idea
The wordmark already holds the idea: a still picture with life in it. The headline splits the same way. STILL is rigid, upright and loud; human. is loose, italic and soft, and it overlaps the portrait as if written across the print. The red focus frame is the photographer's eye, borrowed from the camera's own screen, and the same red marks the slash in the logo and the one button. The 01 to 05 counter lets five portraits take turns in the hero, one face at a time.
02The write-up
The design, decision by decision.5 chapters · 2 min
One portrait instead of forty
Photographers tend to open with a grid: every recent shoot at thumbnail size, each picture shrunk by the ones beside it. This design makes the opposite bet. The whole first screen is one close black-and-white portrait, a man with his hand at his chin, lit hard from one side against pure black. If that single frame is good, the visitor has already seen the standard. If it is not, forty more thumbnails would not have rescued it.
For people who dread the camera
The clients in mind are founders, creatives and teams who need photographs of themselves for work and would rather not sit for them. They have seen corporate headshots with grey backdrops and forced smiles. The portrait answers that worry without mentioning it: no studio grin, a direct gaze, stubble and loose curls left as they are. The button, Make something real, speaks to the same fear, offering a picture that looks like the person rather than a stock version of them.
Rigid word, loose word
The headline is a two-word argument between typefaces. STILL is set in cream capitals so narrow and tall that the word stands down the left side of the screen like a column. human. replies in lowercase italics, a serif with hairline joins and long, swinging entry strokes, and it runs straight across the portrait as if written on the print. The ascender of the h rises into the gap between the T and the I of STILL, so the two lines lock together. Rigid, then relaxed: the same shift a good sitting needs.
The photographer's eye, in red
Only one colour interrupts the black and white. Four red brackets, the focus frame from a camera's screen, sit over one of the man's eyes, so the page shows exactly what the photographer is looking at. The same signal red appears in the slash of the STILL / MOTION wordmark and fills the Make something real button, and nowhere else. Three small uses are enough to make red the brand colour without tinting a single photograph.
Five faces, taking turns
Along the foot, PORTRAITS / BRANDS / PEOPLE sums up the services in light, widely tracked capitals. Opposite, a slim 01 to 05 counter hints that the hero rotates, with five portraits taking the frame one after another, so range comes from sequence rather than a grid. The plan adds Work, Studio and Contact pages with about 1,800 words of copy, online booking for sittings with a deposit paid to the studio's own account, and room for the studio to swap in its own portraits and prices.
03Type and voice
Type, colour, photography and the lines on the page.3 roles
- Display
- An extremely tall, condensed sans in cream capitals, packed tight and standing more than half the frame high.
- Supporting
- A high-contrast italic serif in lowercase with long, sweeping entry strokes, laid across the portrait.
- Labels
- Light, widely tracked sans capitals carry the wordmark and the service line along the foot.
STILL is an extremely tall, condensed sans in capitals; human. answers in a high-contrast italic serif with long, sweeping strokes. The wordmark and the Portraits / Brands / People line use a light, widely tracked sans, while the nav switches to a small serif. Darkroom black, paper white and one signal red are the only colours. The photograph is a close, low-key black-and-white portrait, hand at the chin, lit from one side.
STILL human.
Make something real
PORTRAITS / BRANDS / PEOPLE
Few words, each doing two jobs. The headline plays on the studio's own name and the button promises honesty over polish; there is no adjective about quality anywhere, so the portrait has to prove it.
04The plan
Grow: up to 6 pages, and what it includes.4 includes
Up to 6 pages, on Grow, AED 4,999 one time. What it includes:
- Work, Studio and Contact pages, with about 1,800 words written for you
- Sittings booked online, with the deposit paid into the studio's own account
- Portraits, galleries and prices the studio edits itself
- An Arabic version of every page, as an extra
A site like this sits on Grow. AED 4,999 one time, with a fixed quote in writing.
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