Twenty years of projects, one page

The Brief

A construction firm with over 20 years of completed work across multiple sectors and no website to represent any of it. The brief was to design a landing page that could introduce the firm, establish credibility, demonstrate the range and scale of their work, communicate their values, and give potential recruits a reason to get in touch.

That is a significant amount of ground for a single page to cover. The design challenge was sequencing it so the page felt purposeful rather than exhaustive.

Research

I ran a competitor audit of construction firm websites locally and internationally. The findings were consistent: brochure-style layouts, service lists, a project gallery, and a contact form. The visual standard was low and differentiation was rare.

The audit shaped the approach in two ways. First, it confirmed there was genuine room to stand out visually without overreaching. Second, it revealed that most competitors buried their strongest proof points, years of experience, project numbers, client counts, behind copy that asked visitors to read before they had decided to trust. The firms that read as most credible led with numbers.

Design Process

Eleven sections is a lot for one page, so the sequencing did most of the work: establish who we are, prove scale, show the work, explain what we stand for, and invite the right people to take action. Each section had a defined job, and the visual weight was calibrated to match how much that job mattered.

Icons were drawn for the services section rather than pulled from a set. Paired with photography, they gave each service a visual anchor that a text list couldn’t provide. At the size they end up on the page this is a small win, and I would not sell the page on it.

The director board and sustainability sections were treated as full sections rather than condensed footnotes. The client had genuine values in both areas, and reducing them to a small block of text would have undercut the credibility they were meant to build.

The engagement ended at design handoff and the site was not built.

Key Decisions

Organising the project portfolio by sector rather than by date was the decision that mattered most, and it is the one I would defend hardest. A procurement officer is not looking for what was built most recently. They are looking for evidence of relevant experience, and a reverse-chronological grid hides exactly that. Sector categorisation surfaces it in one click.

The research said the firms that read as most credible led with numbers, and the page does not. It opens with a positioning statement over a skyline, and the twenty-year figure arrives about a screen and a half down. That gap between what the research pointed at and what the layout does is the weakest part of this design, and it is visible in the mockup below. Twenty years in operation is evidence. A positioning statement is a claim. The evidence should have been first.

The join the team CTA was placed late in the page rather than in the navigation only. A visitor who has read through the firm’s projects, values, and leadership and is still engaged is already a warmer candidate than someone who clicks a careers link from the top. Placing the recruitment prompt at that point in the journey was a conscious choice about timing.

What I’d Do Differently

I didn’t design for mobile. For a site with eleven sections and significant visual complexity, mobile layout decisions matter enormously. The section sequencing, the icon grid, the project portfolio structure: all of these needed their own mobile treatment, and leaving that to be figured out at the build stage would have produced inconsistent results.

In hindsight I would also have pushed to design at least the project detail and services inner pages alongside the landing. The landing promised a depth of content that the design didn’t follow through on because those pages were out of scope. A sector-filtered portfolio that leads nowhere is half a feature.