Base recognised their website wasn't presenting the scale and impact of their work. They needed a digital experience that brought the stories of their most iconic projects to life — with greater confidence, clarity and impact, underlined by their proven track record for delivering technically complex builds.

To attract clients with more ambitious design and architectural intent, the brand needed to evolve. Our task became two-fold: develop the existing brand elements into a fresh visual identity that mirrored the design sensibilities of their target audience, and create a striking digital platform that captured Base's niche offering in spatial design and engineering — from one-of-a-kind installations to their range of off-the-shelf structures.

Site-specific design, material manufacturing and engineering, rigging at height — we were struck by the sheer nerve and creative ambition alive in the Base team.

The idea that ‘tension builds’ emerged from the defining forces at play and in the moments of suspense as their large-scale fabric structures are realised. This concept gave us scope to ground the new identity in this visual metaphor, and create graphic elements and motion devices that emulated the push-pull dynamics unique in tensile fabric engineering. 

We evolved their existing colour palette to be digital-first, bringing in electric blues and purples to create stronger contrasts, bright accents and gradients. The gothic sans serif PP Mori typeface was chosen for its subtle character — clean and contemporary with unexpected details. 

Curved linear elements meeting at pinch points spoke to the idea of opposing forces, defining the brand's graphic language with the fabric structures' complex, curved geometry.

The push-pull dynamic can be felt throughout the digital experience. Curved linear elements warp, stretch and bounce, and subtle zoom mechanics expand titles and image widths in response to scrolling. All animation was designed to be purposeful; bringing emphasis to content, reinforcing messaging and building on the brand identity. By interacting with the site, users get a real feeling of the tension alive in Base's work for themselves.

We built a user-friendly Craft CMS platform to give the team the space and flexibility to tell the stories of their most iconic projects in a way that was both engaging and easy to manage.

A flexible, SEO-optimised blog gives the team a platform to share smaller wins and expert insights. We also developed the website as a valuable internal resource — retaining a catalogue of 150+ projects in an online archive, hidden from end users but accessible to the sales team when exploring, pitching and designing new project ideas.