Responses by Meguru Muramoto, designer and developer, Garden Eight.

Background: Motoyoshi Takamitsu is a photographer based in Tokyo. We designed this portfolio website as a space for users to experience his photographs more deeply. It targets not only clients and stakeholders but also users who wish to enjoy his work.

Design core: I started designing Takamitsu’s website by understanding the world of his photographs. His style blends meticulously calculated compositions with the randomness influenced by film photography. The design incorporates infinite scrolling and interactive elements, letting users enjoy the photos in a more immersive photography experience. At the same time, the simple layout with minimal decoration naturally draws attention to the photographs, letting visitors intuitively sense the details and atmosphere of his works.

For the mouse interactions, I avoided excessive effects in order to convey the quality of the photos. By applying effects to the photos through user actions such as hovering, I made it feel like the user was flipping through and moving the photos themselves.

Challenges: To develop infinite scrolling on the homepage, I needed to handle a large number of images efficiently. To address this, I made it possible to select images to display through WordPress, ensuring they load with minimal resources. By displaying photos randomly, I was able to reduce the load time while still creating a portfolio with a sense of serendipity, where you can encounter different photos every time you visit.

While horizontal scrolling creates an immersive experience on the site, it may not be intuitive for users who are not familiar with the interaction. To solve this, I put an animation on the first loading page to help users naturally understand the scrolling direction.

Technology: For the front end, I used barba.js, GSAP, three.js and webpack. I optimized performance by utilizing WordPress and making the website static. For the design, I used Figma.