Responses by Rachel Scott Everett and Brian Gibson, cofounders and creative directors, Evergib
Background: The primary purpose of our site is to showcase our work and our process as a creative nomadic studio in a way that is clear, engaging and inspiring. Our target audience is twofold: ad agencies looking to hire a senior creative team for a new business pitch or freelance project, and individual clients in need of branding. Staying true to our wanderlust roots, we also included a section on our travels to more than 50 countries across six continents.
Design core: Being highly visual people, we wanted to showcase our work by featuring full-width imagery that makes an impact, especially on a large 5K monitor. To keep the design clean and streamlined, we interspersed our portfolio pieces with white space and added descriptions of our process and results. We love the way the grid layout gives the site a feeling of structure, enabling an overview of the work on mobile without the usual endless scrolling.
Challenges: Preparing all the imagery and mockups for our projects and establishing a consistent pattern throughout. We used the opportunity to learn the new CSS grid layout and implemented it across the board in the portfolio pages and site navigation. As meticulous creatives, self-promotion is often the most time consuming of projects, but it’s also the most rewarding.
Navigation features: We wanted our work to speak for itself, so we let visuals from our projects lead the user. Having work samples act as navigation gives an overview of our portfolio while maintaining the visual rhythm established by the grid. This also offers greater control to our audience who can select what’s most relevant to their needs and interests. Our goal was to create an immersive site that encourages exploration, just like our staff of wanderers.
Technology: We built the site on WordPress CMS and a Genesis framework and are hosting it on the WP Engine. We implemented a CSS grid layout across all the portfolio pages and internal navigation, with some flexbox thrown in for card layouts.