Responses by NeoPangea.

Background: NeoPangea is a creative partner for imaginative brands who dare to dream. We have been so focused on dreaming up wonderful experiences for our clients that we neglected our own aging website. The shoemakers’ shoes analogy certainly fits here.

Our old site didn’t do a great job of showing the diversity of our work—but also neglected to share why we do it. We do it to have fun while doing it; after all, that’s what we’re about. That’s why the crew here—and hopefully you as well, readers—got into this crazy business. It’s why people love working with us: it never feels like work.

Technology: We used MODX for the CMS, PHP and HTML/CSS/JavaScript, Bootstrap 5.0 for its base CSS framework and utilities, Vue.js for its progressively enhanced components (which enabled us to remove years of jQuery spaghetti), and Lottie and GSAP for the animations and transitions.

Design core: Our new website’s aesthetic pushes our hand-crafted, bespoke, Victorian vibe even further than past iterations. While other agencies feel the need to lean into cold, squared-off, Helvetica-filled modern design principles, we create work that’s never humdrum or wishy-washy. Why would we want to look like an industrial grid of boxes?

Part of leaning into our vibe warranted building the worlds in which our content would live. We created whimsical airships and distinctive maps. You may find a sea monster lurking in the depths.

Favorite details: We love the look and feel of the new site and how much motion we were able to inject into it. But we’re most proud of our voice. What you say and how you say it is often overlooked. We’ve finally found a proper vehicle for a quirky tone of voice and used the website to showcase it.

Challenges: Time. Our old website was about ten years old, held together with duct tape and chewing gum. We’d been so busy growing and having fun crafting work with our amazing clients that we never had time to invest in website self-care. Once we treated this like a client project—all the way from discovery and strategy to design and development—we could set the stage on which our guiding forces began to take shape into a theatrical landscape of magical experimentation.

Special navigational features: Over the years, we learned that people loved our old website—featured on Communication Arts, too—and it showcased a lot of work. But people often asked: “What specific work do you do?” We added a Capabilities section that showcases the categories of content and experience we produce. If people are still unclear, they can text our main number. It’s a secret Choose Your Own Adventure chatbot that not a lot of people have discovered quite yet.