Development Focus
The focus was to take an existing design direction and turn it into a custom WordPress build that felt polished, responsive and easy to manage. ACF handled the editable content, Timber and Twig kept the templates structured, and GSAP was used to bring key sections to life through scroll-based movement, timed sequences and smaller interface transitions.
Tone
The site needed to feel active without becoming distracting. Animations were used to guide attention, explain parts of the brand and connect sections together, while AlpineJS and vanilla JavaScript handled lighter interface behaviour such as toggles, playback controls and conditional states.
Building Making Websites Better
Making Websites Better started with a clear design direction that needed to be rebuilt properly inside WordPress. My role was not to rethink the brand or redesign the site from scratch. The work was about taking the existing creative and turning it into a fast, responsive and maintainable build that could support a high level of animation and interaction.
The most important part of the development was balance. The site relies heavily on movement, however I did not want the animation to feel like a layer added on top of the content. GSAP was used throughout the build to create scroll-based transitions, logo-focused animation sequences, timed indicators and smaller micro-interactions, but each movement needed to support the message rather than compete with it.
Animations and Interactivity
The homepage contains the most animation-heavy parts of the site. One large sequence moves across the screen and zooms into individual points of the logo, using those points to explain different parts of the brand. Another timed animation moves a circular indicator between content areas, visually connecting the ideas as the user moves through the page. These sections needed careful timing because they were not only decorative, they were part of how the content was introduced.
Interactivity was handled with a mix of AlpineJS and vanilla JavaScript. AlpineJS was useful for smaller state-based behaviour, including toggles, playback controls and conditional interface changes, without introducing unnecessary complexity. Gravity Forms was integrated into the contact areas and styled to sit naturally within the rest of the site, rather than feeling like a default form dropped into a custom build.
Technologies
The site was developed as a custom WordPress theme using Timber and Twig, which helped keep the templates cleaner as the number of custom sections grew. ACF gave the admin area the structure it needed, allowing content to be edited without making the front-end layout fragile. That was important because the site needed to remain practical for the business after launch, not just look good during handover.
Performance was considered throughout the build, particularly because animation-heavy websites can become uncomfortable on slower devices if they are not handled carefully. Videos and animation assets were compressed and timed to avoid blocking the page, while GSAP timelines were scoped so the browser was not doing unnecessary work outside the active areas. The layout was also tested across breakpoints so the mobile experience felt intentionally adapted rather than simply reduced from the desktop version.
Outcome
The most interesting part of the project was making the motion feel controlled. The site needed to feel alive, but it still had to behave like a fast, usable WordPress website. That meant treating animation, content management, performance and responsive development as connected parts of the same build rather than separate tasks.
