Digital experiences, Evanston, Illinois
Websites people can put their hands on.
We design and build interactive 3D websites: real-time 3D, custom shaders and scroll that tells a story, for a launch, a product or a brand that has to stand apart in its market. The block of steel in front of you is one, drawn live by your own device.
Try it
Touch the metal
Press and hold anywhere on the steel. It heats where you touch it and changes colour in the order real steel does when it’s tempered: straw first, then purple, then blue. This is software running on your screen, and your device draws every frame while you watch.
SurfaceHold to heatBare
What we mean by a digital experience
A digital experience is a website built like a piece of software. The page draws a live 3D scene on the visitor’s screen and the scene responds to them: scrolling moves the camera through a story, and a cursor or a finger changes what they see. It runs in an ordinary browser, so nobody installs an app or waits for a download.
We write the shaders ourselves. Shaders are the small programs that decide how every surface looks and moves, and writing our own means your brand gets a material and a light that belong to it.
When a business needs one
Most businesses need a fast, clear website, and if that’s you we’ll say so. A digital experience earns its cost when people have to see something before they believe it.
- 01A launch, when you get one chance to make people stop scrolling.
- 02A product that’s hard to picture from a photo, like a machine, a building, a material or a service with moving parts.
- 03A brand in a crowded market where every competitor’s site looks alike.
- 04A showroom or a configurator, so customers can turn the product and choose its finish before they call you.
- 05Recruiting, investors and partners, who judge a company by how it presents itself.
- 06Trade shows, events and lobby screens, where the same build runs on a large display.
Speed
Built to run on the phone in your hand
Most 3D on the web is slow, so we treat speed as part of the design. On this page the words arrive first as plain HTML and the 3D loads after them. Before it starts, the scene checks what your device can handle: a desktop gets the full version, a phone gets a lighter one that looks the same, and a device that can’t draw 3D gets a still image. As you scroll, the page watches its own frame rate and steps down a level if your device starts to struggle.
A laptop pretending to be a phone tells you little about a phone’s graphics chip. That’s why this page has its own budget for phones and measures itself on whatever device opens it.
One surface.
Everything on this ring is one material under one light. We light it the way a product photographer lights a bottle, with the edge first, most of the form left in shadow, and one highlight brighter than anything else on the page. That restraint is what makes a 3D scene look expensive on a screen, and it’s how we’d light your product.
Live
Measured while you read
These numbers come from your device, right now. We set a budget for each of them before we write any code, because staying inside it is what keeps a scene smooth on a phone.
- Frame time
- measuringHow long your device takes to draw one picture. Budget: under 16.7 ms, which is 60 pictures a second.
- Triangles
- 184,328 / 64,520The pieces the steel is built from. Budget: 200,000 on a desktop, 80,000 on a phone.
- Draw calls
- 10Separate jobs sent to your graphics chip each frame. Budget: 12.
- Pixel ratio
- 2 / 1.5How sharply the scene is drawn. Capped at 2 on a desktop and 1.5 on a phone.
- Quality level
- measuringWhich of the four versions, from 0 to 3, your device is running.
3D is off on this device, so you’re reading the page without it.
Every colour here is a real temperature
When steel is heated, a thin film of oxide grows on its surface and changes colour as the metal gets hotter. It turns straw at about 420°F, purple at about 540°F and blue at about 590°F, and blacksmiths still judge temperature by it.
Those are the three colours of this website, so the ring is showing you our palette and the physics behind it at once. We design every scene this way: each effect needs a reason, and the reason is usually your product, your story or your customer.
- Straw, about 420°F
- Purple, about 540°F
- Blue, about 590°F
What we build
We take on the whole discipline, from one 3D moment on the site you already have to a complete world people explore, and we design, build, host and look after all of it.
3D heroes and product reveals
The first screen of a site, built around your product or your idea.
Product viewers and configurators
Customers turn the product, change its materials and colours, and see what they’re choosing before they buy or call.
Scroll stories
A camera path through your product, your process or your building, moved by the visitor’s scroll.
Launch and campaign sites
One page that carries a launch and loads fast from an ad or a social post.
Interactive tools
Calculators, maps and planners that make a decision easier for your customer.
Screens and events
The same build on a trade-show wall, a lobby display or a touch table.
3D on your current site
Added to WordPress or whatever you run today, with the rest of the site left as it is.
We also make the 3D models, textures and motion these need. If you already have files, we can start from them: product photos, CAD from SolidWorks or AutoCAD, SketchUp and Revit models, Blender and FBX files, Figma and Illustrator designs, or a sketch on paper. Send what you have, and on the first call we’ll tell you how we’d use it.
Switch
Turn the 3D off
Press the switch and the 3D goes away. What’s left is the page Google reads, the page a screen reader speaks aloud, and the page anyone sees when their device can’t draw 3D, with every heading, sentence and link in plain HTML. We build it this way so an experience never costs you search rankings or customers on older phones. The switch stays in the corner for the rest of your visit.
This device can’t draw the 3D, so you’re already reading the plain page.
How we make one
- 01
We agree what it’s for.
Before any design, we settle what the experience has to do for the business: launch a product, sell a configuration, explain something hard, or make you the obvious choice in your market.
- 02
You hold a prototype.
We build the central idea as a working prototype you open on your own phone, so you judge the real thing in your hand.
- 03
We build the whole page.
Design, 3D, code and copy move together, and every build is reviewed on desktop and phone screens before you see it.
- 04
We launch it and measure it.
It goes live on your hosting or ours, we check speed and search on launch day, and we watch how people use it so the next change is based on what they did.
Timing The dates come out of step one. Once we know what the experience has to do, we put the prototype and launch dates in writing next to the price, before any work starts.
This page is the sample
You’ve been using it for a few minutes, so you already know how it runs on your device. These are its numbers right now, measured by the page itself on your device.
- Frame time, your device
- under 16.7 ms
- Quality level, your device
- 0 to 3
- Pixel ratio, your device
- 2 / 1.5
- Page weight so far
- under 500 KB
What it costs
You get a fixed, written quote before any work starts. The number depends on how much of the scene is custom 3D, how many pages it spans and whether it connects to your product data, and it holds for the scope we write down. If you want to change something along the way, we quote the change in writing before we do it. If you’d rather start small, a Launch Sprint puts one high-craft page live at a fixed price. The first call, where we scope it, costs nothing.
Questions owners ask us
Will it work on my customers’ phones?
Yes. Every build has a full version for desktops, a lighter version for phones and a still image for devices that can’t draw 3D. You can see all three on this page.
Will Google still read the page?
Yes. Every word is plain HTML that loads before the 3D, so search engines and AI assistants read the same page your visitors do. Press “Turn the 3D off” above to see exactly what they get.
Will it slow my site down?
The text appears first and the 3D loads after it, so the page is readable straight away. We give every scene a size and speed budget and measure it before launch.
Can you add this to the website I already have?
Yes. We can add a 3D hero, a product viewer or a single interactive section to WordPress or most other platforms without rebuilding the rest of your site.
Can my team change the words?
Yes. The text lives in your content system, WordPress for most clients, so your team edits it like any other page and the 3D stays as it is.
What about people who get motion sick?
If someone’s device is set to reduce motion, the page holds every scene still and keeps all of the text. There’s also a motion switch in the corner of every page.
Who owns it when it’s finished?
You do. The code, the 3D models and the accounts are yours from the first day. If you decide to move on, give us 30 days’ notice and we’ll hand over every login, key and file, with the documentation your next team needs to keep it running.
What does it cost?
It depends on how much of the scene is custom 3D, how many pages it spans and whether it connects to your product data. Tell us what you have in mind and we’ll give you a fixed, written quote before any work starts. The quote holds for that scope, and any change you ask for is quoted in writing before we do it. If you’d rather start small, a Launch Sprint puts one high-craft page live at a fixed price.
What should your customers be able to touch?
Every mark you made on the steel is still there. An experience asks the visitor to take part, and the finished piece keeps what they did.
Tell us what you’re launching, selling or explaining, and we’ll reply with how we’d make it something people can put their hands on and what it would cost. If a fast, simple site would serve you better, we’ll tell you that too.
A person who builds here reads every message, and we reply within one business day. Or write to us through the contact page.