SmartMagic
A creative agency with work for names most people recognise, competing in the one category where a weak website is unforgivable: selling websites and digital work to other people.
The problem
An agency site is the portfolio piece every prospect judges first. SmartMagic had the client list to justify their positioning and a site that made a viewer wonder whether the list was real, which is the worst possible outcome.
Agency sites also tend to describe process at length and show outcomes briefly. Prospects want the reverse — the proof first, the method second, and only if the proof has earned the attention.
Our process, explained in detail.
A site that made the client list look unreal
Process described at length
Outcomes shown briefly, three scrolls down
The approach
Put the client work and the recognisable names in the first screen rather than three scrolls down. In this category proof is the entire argument and everything else is supporting material.
The treatment went deliberately bold — high-contrast dark with a strong red accent — because an agency that plays it safe visually invites the obvious question about whether it can do anything else.
The work and the names, first.
Proof in the first screen
Method second, as supporting material
A deliberately bold treatment
What we built
Six decisions that shaped the build, each made for a reason rather than an aesthetic.
Client work and recognisable names placed where a prospect sees them immediately, because in this category proof is the whole argument.
High-contrast dark treatment with a strong red accent — an agency that plays it visually safe invites doubt about its range.
What the work achieved leads; how the agency works follows, and only once the proof has earned that attention.
Each project readable in fifteen seconds or in five minutes, depending on how serious the prospect already is.
Considered interaction that demonstrates capability without becoming the kind of showreel that gets in the way of the content.
New case studies published in-house, so the strongest asset on the site stays current between rebuilds.
What changed afterwards
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