The Brief
Julian Masson came to me seeking a new website for the launch of his new business: Maison Sage. He was working with a branding designer at the same time and needed a website specialist to build the website inline with the brand and ensure it all the technical capabilities required for a successful real estate site.
My Process
Often a project timeline and process is dictated by what materials you have available and when. Maison Sage was no different. Julian came prepared with a complete draft of the website copy but the branding and imagery was not available until a month before the website launched. That meant we had to start with a wireframing phase where we could settle on the site layouts and then “colour them in” with brand assets later.
The wireframing phase allowed us to settle on the layouts we wanted but also finalise the copy and shrink parts down where required. With the brand imagery not due until a few weeks before launch, we worked with AI-generated images for the majority of the project. This meant we could define the images we wanted for each section before the shoot took place to make sure it gave us the shots we needed.
The designs were completed around three weeks before launch which left just enough time for the build phase. We initially built the site using AI-generated images that were switched out for their counterparts from the brand shoot during the build phase.
Key Decisions
The key part of the design process was presenting Maison Sage as more than “just another real estate company”. Julian’s focus on using exceptional marketing to help sell his client’s homes meant creating a website that stood out from it’s competitors. To ensure the site looked as “un-templatised” as possible, I took a defamiliarising approach where I went against my normal patterns to try and take things in a fresh direction. The result was a highly asymmetrical design with each piece of text and image content aiming to draw the user’s eye to the next one. Julian liked the initial design but was keen to refine to make it slightly more professional and conventional while keeping it’s aesthetic heart. After one round of major revisions and a two more rounds of small revisions we settled on the design as it is now.
The Outcome
The site was ready and deployed in time for the official launch of Maison Sage on 31st August 2026. In the first week it received over 400 visitors and received many compliments form Julian’s colleagues and clients.
