- Studio concept
Studio Desk
A studio concept laid out as a desk seen from above. You pan across a cutting mat, pick up papers and open them, and one button tidies everything into a single neat column.
The problem
Most homepages are a column of sections. This studio concept asked whether a studio's homepage could be a place you look around, like a desk covered in the work.
How it works
The disciplines this concept tests, and the full write-up below.
- Web Design & Development
More enquiries from your website, and a site your team can actually update.
- Brand & Identity
A brand people remember, applied the same way on your website, slides and print.
Studio Desk is a TechSum studio concept: a working homepage prototype that tests how a page can carry a brand idea. It was not built for a business, and you can open it and move around it.
What question did it test?
A homepage is usually a column of sections. Studio Desk asks whether a homepage can feel like a place you explore, while staying easy to read for anyone who just wants to scroll.
What did we build?
The homepage is a desk seen from above, with a lamp that switches on when the page opens. Each part of the studio's story is an object on a cutting mat. The brief is a sheet of paper. The sites we have built are prints. The five phases of a project are index cards. The products are boxes. The essays are a notebook. The contact form is an envelope.
You drag to pan, with a little momentum, and pinch to zoom on a touch screen. On a keyboard, the arrow keys pan, plus and minus zoom, and 0 shows the whole desk. A small map shows where you are, and pressing Tab moves the camera to each item in order, so the page works without a mouse.
One button, Tidy the desk, animates every object into a single neat column. It suits a phone, or anyone who prefers to scroll: the same content in a plainer order. We built both views so the idea would not get in the way of reading.
Also on the desk:
- A diagram of how a piece of work moves through the studio, with a small live record that updates as it runs.
- A strip of swatches for the disciplines.
- Hand-drawn tally marks under the heading "Kept count since 2021".
- A tracing-paper sketch of the sun mark.
If your device asks for reduced motion, the animations are switched off.
What did it show us?
A concept lets us test an idea without a real brand's budget or brief in the way. Studio Desk shows that a page can be playful and still be usable from a keyboard, on a phone and with motion switched off. There is no live result to report, because it is a concept. It is one of two homepage concepts we built, along with Sundial, and the thinking behind it is the same we bring to web design and development and brand and identity work.
Open the Studio Desk prototype, or tell us about a page you want built around an idea.
