Matthew Childs Design

Overview of the project

Matthew Childs Design is an award-winning garden design company. Matthew approached Preface Studios because of our work with Jamie Butterworth and Form Plants. When we met, Matthew’s website was very outdated and really didn’t show-off his personality or creativity. He wanted the new site to catch people’s attention and allow people to connect with his style.

The new website uses a dark colour palette, which is unexpected as many in the industry opt for white and greens. The black provides a backdrop for the public, private and show garden portfolio. It really makes the colours pop and adds character.

The homepage uses parallax scrolling images for added depth, combined with movement as users interact with the page, which encourages users to click into the projects. The whole website was built with progressive enhancement in mind to make it compatible on all browsers. It also loads and functions with and without JavaScript enabled; an often overlooked but vital component of website development, particularly for SEO. The interactive project menu uses a distorted image hover effect and the project pages are particularly clever – using standard scrolling on smaller screen sizes, which then switches to a horizontal scrolling layout when there is space available.

We also used our video partners to create a talking heads video of Matthew for the home page to support the storytelling.

“I’m so thrilled with my new website. The Preface Studios team were extremely creative and the finished website bucks the trend for my industry. I wanted a website that reflects my work; something meaningful and creative that showcases my breadth of experience in creating inspiring and exciting outdoor spaces. I’m so pleased that the feedback on the website has been very positive from customers and industry connections alike.”