Wonderland

Best Homepage / Nominee

Wonderland

Best Homepage

Nominee

As the world shifts en masse to digital, being different online matters more than ever. Having the capabilities here at Wonderland to turn ideas into something really cool on the web is why we love to do our jobs everyday. - Wonderland Team

Q: Can you describe your project and the concept behind it?

A: For every project, we work from an insight-based approach on where we can improve digital experiences. For our own homepage, we went back to the core of what we do — that is to create an online experience that sets us apart from competitors and connects with our audience. Since the focus lies on experience, we initially worked on getting the narrative right in copy, and then worked on a visual concept to complement it.

Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods?

A: Our previous website was based on a 3D coded environment, purely to add interaction for the user. As the new visual concept we came up with was quite complex to reproduce in code, instead we created a video that we embedded in the website. We were able to get the same desired aesthetics while also being able to actively ensure site speed remains fast.

Q: What web technologies, tools, and resources did you use to develop this?

A: We developed the website with a nice stack of technologies. We used DatoCMS to create our data models, GQL to fetch the data, VueJS / NuxtJS for javascript framework and SSR (server side rendering), and GSAP for the nice javascript tweens. We code on visual studio with a few plugins (Eslint, Prettier, Vetur) and design on Figma.

When did you experience a breakthrough or an "a-ha" moment during this project?

You are always the best critic of your own internal projects, and we also wanted to use the site as an experiment of our best technical skill. So trust assured there were plenty of "a-ha" moments amongst the many rounds of iterations. But these made for the best moments as we were able to experiment with the unexpected, digging for new interactions and tweaking values for the fine-tuning!

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Q: How did you balance your own creative ideas and technical capabilities with a fair representation of the client’s brand?

A: As the website is a showcase of our own ideas and technical capabilities, we wanted to push the boundaries with what we could do to show the world.

Q: How did the final product meet or exceed your expectations?

A: We received some great recognition for the site amongst the digital community and with the traction of new clients. On Awwwards.com we won site of the day, mobile of the week and the developer awards.

Q: Why is this an exciting time to create new digital experiences? How does your team fit into this?

A: As the world shifts en masse to digital, being different online matters more than ever. Having the capabilities here at Wonderland to turn ideas into something really cool on the web is why we love to do our jobs everyday. So the question is always, "How can we create something thoughtful, jaw-dropping, and smart; which helps brands wow their customers?"