Seamless Photographic Journey
Otto van den Toorn is an acclaimed beauty and fashion photographer from the Netherlands. Following the success of his award-winning portfolio website launched in 2018, we reimagined his digital presence, transforming it into a dynamic and seamless world of exploration.
The core of the experience was to keep Otto’s photography as the focal point, using visuals to guide visitors through the journey with a minimally distracting UI. We crafted a dynamic UI that provided support and contextual information while encouraging exploration, creating an experience that moves beyond traditional webpage structures. Given Otto’s rich, expansive body of work, we designed a space to inspire exploration and discovery, enabling content to move fluidly from broader views to intricate details. This design gives the impression of moving through a world rather than simply browsing a conventional website.
“The first Ottografie website put Exo Ape on the map, making its reinvention a challenge. This drove us to push boundaries and craft something even more intuitive, innovative, and meaningful.”
Adaptive Navigation
A single, dynamic UI element powers the experience, intelligently adapting its appearance based on page content and interactions. It also serves as a display area, offering helpful hints and information to assist visitors while making navigation seamless and enjoyable.
“To keep the visuals center stage with minimal distraction, we created a single dynamic UI element that guides users and reveals relevant information as needed, evoking the sensation of journeying through a world rather than browsing a traditional website.”
Throughout the process, we carefully mapped all dynamic UI states to ensure intuitive connections, identify scenarios that required improvement, and validate that every interaction feels natural and effortless.
Explore photography at its finest Level
Within the image gallery, the dynamic UI element transforms into a quick, easy-to-use zoom tool, enabling visitors to closely inspect the finest details of the photography without any distractions. Visitors can also adjust the background color, choosing from multiple contrast settings for an enhanced viewing experience, ensuring the photography remains the focal point.
“Because every detail deserves full attention, we created an intuitive way to bring photography closer, clearer, and completely undistracted.”
The photographer becomes the subject
To bring Otto’s biography to life, we reversed roles and had him step in front of the camera, capturing colorful atmospheric silhouettes for each chapter. This approach gives visitors a personal glimpse of Otto and highlights the visual approach at the heart of his work.
“Otto captures the world through his lens. This time, we captured him—bringing his story to life in a way that feels true to his art”
Smooth navigation, optimized for mobile.
On mobile, the dynamic UI element takes center stage, offering a fluid, app-inspired experience. Recognizable gestures like ‘tap for next,’ commonly used on social media, ensure the journey feels intuitive, simple, and immersive.
Developing the experience.
On the tech side, we’ve built a robust stack to bring this project to life. Nuxt.js serves as the front-end framework, providing a powerful and flexible structure to create a fast, dynamic website. Storyblok is our go-to CMS for its intuitive and scalable solutions to more than 20 different layouts, which enables us to easily create and customize diverse project pages. To ensure optimal performance, we use source sets and the Storyblok Image Service to optimize and efficiently preload high-resolution images. Dynamic elements like the UI are updated in real time through smart state updates. For deployment, we rely on Vercel, ensuring quick and reliable hosting with automated scalability.
About Exo Ape
Exo Ape is a global digital design studio partnering with brands and businesses that create exceptional experiences where people live, work, and unwind. We help experiences-driven companies thrive by making their audience feel the refined intricacies of their brand and product in the digital space.
It's our philosophy that digital experiences should be captivating and focus on the essential elements that make a brand unique. We help experience-driven companies thrive by making their audience feel the refined intricacies of their brand and product in the digital space. Our data-driven approach aims to create brand advocates, resulting in increased brand loyalty, engagement, and conversions.
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