Lows Design and Build
Visit live siteThe mark
It started with the client's own sketches. I refined them into a clean geometric mark, a little house drawn in one continuous line, then set a typeface and a colour that hold up small on a phone and large on a wall. One mark, one weight of line, working the same everywhere: on Bromley FC matchday branding, on the hoarding around a live site, and later as the foundation the website was built on.
Custom, not a template
The old site was a stock template. The new one is Next.js and a hand-written front end. No page builder, no theme sitting underneath it. The whole thing loads fast, reads well on any screen, and behaves exactly how it was drawn, because nothing on the page is there by accident.
A CMS they run themselves
The site is wired into Sanity. Projects, team, copy, pricing, the photos in every gallery: the family edits all of it from one dashboard and the site updates itself. Add a project and it appears in the grid, gets its own page, and slots into the sitemap. No developer, no waiting, no invoice for a text change. The fields are set up so they cannot break the layout: long title, short title, one photo or ten, the components hold their shape either way.
The animation
Nothing on the site fades in. It rises. Every heading, image and section comes up out of a mask as you reach it, so the page feels built rather than dropped in front of you. The entrance is a custom preloader: the house mark draws itself, then opens like a keyhole onto the home page. On project pages the title starts big over the hero, then shrinks and docks into the top corner as you scroll, turning into the nav without a cut.
Tools that earn their place
An instant estimate calculator lets a visitor price their own extension or loft in about a minute; to see the figure they leave a name and an email, so every estimate lands in the client's inbox as a warm lead. Booking a call runs through Calendly, skinned to the brand in its own quiet overlay. Enquiries go straight to their inbox through Web3Forms, and a live Instagram feed keeps the site current without anyone touching it.
It has been nothing but a pleasure working with Finbar on our new website. He has completely transformed our online presence and taken it to the next level. From the initial design through to the finished site, his communication was excellent throughout. He really listened to our ideas, brought them to life, and made creative suggestions for each page that improved both the content and the overall layout and navigation of the website. He also guided us through the SEO side of things, making sure everything was set up properly to give us the best chance of improving our visibility on Google. On top of that, he designed a selection of Instagram posts for us, giving us high-quality content ready to promote the business across our social media. We’re genuinely delighted with the end result and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Finbar to anyone looking for a professional, high-quality website.Samuel Low, Lows Design + Build
ROLE
Sole designer and developer. Refined the client's sketches into the final mark, set the type and colour, then designed and built the website end to end: front-end code, the Sanity CMS and its schema, the estimate tool, and every integration. Plus the launch content for their social channels.
PROBLEM
The old site was a template. It looked like everyone else's and the family could not change much without help. The new one is built from scratch, so every part of it was a decision rather than a default.
OUTCOME
A brand that reads at any size, and a website the family owns outright and updates themselves. It also brings in work on its own: the estimate tool turns a curious visitor into a named lead before anyone picks up the phone. Steady growth in enquiries since it went live.
SKILLS
LIVE SITE
OPEN FOR WORK
finbar@finbar.studio