Concept design
Northlight is a fictional creative studio in Bournemouth that we invented to show our take on advertising agency website design. It's a working concept site: big, confident type, a portfolio that leads the page and a brief form that gets straight to the point. The agency and its clients aren't real — the approach is exactly what we'd use for yours.
The brief
Our imaginary client is a small, senior team of designers, writers and filmmakers a few streets from Bournemouth's seafront. They make brand identities, campaigns, social content, video and out-of-home advertising for businesses along the South Coast.
For an agency, the website is the pitch. Prospective clients judge the studio's taste in the first few seconds, then look for proof: real work, explained well. Northlight's old site was a slow, generic theme with a thumbnail grid and no story behind any of the projects — so the work didn't get the credit it deserved.
The goal: a site with a strong point of view, a portfolio that does the selling, and an enquiry flow that brings in proper briefs rather than vague "can you quote for a logo?" emails.
What we built
Bold and editorial, but still fast and easy to use. Here's what's on the page and why.
01
An oversized, tightly set headline with a serif italic accent, on black. It sets the tone instantly — this studio has opinions — and a scrolling strip of services tells visitors what Northlight actually does without slowing them down.
02
Selected work comes straight after the hero, in a mixed grid of large and small tiles so the strongest projects get the most space. In the concept the tiles are colour and type compositions built in code; on a real site they'd hold the agency's own imagery and film.
03
Each project follows the same simple shape — the challenge, the idea, what we made — so a busy marketing manager can understand the thinking in thirty seconds. It's the format clients use to judge agencies, and it gives every project its own page that can be found in search.
04
The form asks what you need (brand, campaign, social, video, out-of-home), a rough budget and a short description. Tappable options keep it quick, and the budget question helps the studio prioritise and reply with something useful.
05
Five services as big, numbered rows with a one-line description each. They're easy to scan on a phone, and on a real site each row would link to a service page with related projects.
06
A bright blue studio section with photos of the team at work and a three-step way of working — workshop, concepts, make — shows clients who they'll be dealing with and what happens after they get in touch.
Good fit for
This approach works for any creative business that wins work on the strength of what it has already made.
Your agency
A site like Northlight is a bespoke business website: designed from scratch, built by hand without page builders and hosted by us, so heavy portfolio imagery still loads quickly. Business websites start from £1,500, with a fixed written quote before work starts and nothing to pay upfront. If you want to add new case studies yourself, content management is an optional add-on — see our pricing for the details.
We work with clients in Bournemouth and across Hampshire, with every meeting held by video call. Read more about our web design in Bournemouth, or view the live concept and try it on your phone.
Tell us about your studio and the clients you want to win. We reply within one business day.
