Responses by John Moore Williams, head of content strategy, Webflow and Mark Lipert, general manager, Niika

Background: As digital makers, there’s often a powerful tension between our desire to be helpful and straightforward and our urge to make something completely new and different, in part because we often sublimate the latter in favor of the former. This experiment offered us the opportunity to build something that stands out by seeking not to resolve problems, but to ask questions. That desire speaks to who our audience is: the myriad creators and makers out there looking to “make it new”—and not just another homogenous design. The fact that the site can also exemplify the sort of creative freedom we want Webflow to enable is, of course, a fine bonus.

Navigational structure: As the site is quite large and with many moving parts, we decided to keep the navigation fairly minimal and traditional. This meant no scroll-jacking or “smooth scroll” as we wanted users to have complete control, so they couldn’t accidentally miss anything. Seeing how the site was based on an essay, we didn’t want to distract from the journey and message of the written piece, which needs to be digested sequentially.

Time constraints: No project like this can ever really be “finished”—just abandoned at the right time. Time constraints forced us to make decisions if we became too ambitious on a particular concept. We didn’t want sections that were “out of this world” followed by something dull, so minimizing the dissonance between the section styles was vital.

Anything new: We learned that producing an in-depth and experiential piece like this really feels like you’re generating proper “art.” You end up going through the same steps and emotions as you do when creating a painting, and it’s a constant battle to know whether you’re making the right decision or not.

Technical features: Apart from a little extra JavaScript, everything was built directly within Webflow. We used Cinema 4D for some of the scenes and animations, and Zbrush to model out some assets.