Here’s an unfortunate truth: there are countless skilled and experienced architecture firms out there with poor quality websites. Sites that look nothing like the successful projects they’re known for. Instead they’re dated, error prone, difficult to navigate, and unable to perform their most crucial function - securing leads.
Fortunately, no matter how bad an architect’s website is, it’s fixable. We’ve built this blog to be an easy road map to architecture website redemption.
In this article, we’ll provide:
- Strong examples of architect website design
- Steps you can take to improve the look and function of your firm’s website
3 Architect Websites that Exemplify Great Design
These are some of our favorite architect websites live today.
Mohagen Hansen
Mohagen Hansen is one of the most trusted planning, architecture, and design firms in Minnesota. And we’re not just saying that because Vnzo AEC has the honor of designing and developing their website! Their work is award winning and expansive, serving a wide range of industries with a particular focus on industrial, healthcare, and office.
Why Their Website is One of the Best: The Mohagen Hansen website does exactly what an architect’s website should do – showcase projects, highlight the markets they serve, and detail the scope of the services they offer. And it does it all with a clean, welcoming, modern aesthetic that reflects their overarching design ethos.
Specific features that any architecture firm could seek to emulate include:
- A homepage headed by a large, cycling display that shows project highlights.
- Clear calls to action (CTA) throughout, including a button directing visitors to “View our Work” in the top navigation bar.
- Easy, logical navigation from the top bar to each relevant industry they serve
Selldorf Architects
Selldorf Architects is the eponymous firm founded by Annabelle Selldorf in 1988. Their work is particularly sought after in the art world, with numerous galleries, museums, and artist homes among their completed projects.
Why Their Website is One of the Best: The Selldorf Architects website reflects the design approach that elevated Annabelle Selldorf to prominence in the first place – restrained, elegant, and precise. It’s edited to the essentials, which are laid out in an easy-to-understand interface that prominently showcases project imagery.
Specific features that any architecture firm could seek to emulate include:
- Prominent imagery accompanying every content section
- Minimalist black and white design that keeps the focus on the colorful photography
- Judicious use of text, with longer copy reserved for appropriate subpages to encourage visitors to explore further
Gensler
Gensler is a major international architecture firm, with more than 53 offices spread across 17 countries. Their website reflects their cosmopolitan identity with its vibrant, content-rich design. While very few firms will even come close to the scope and breadth of Gensler’s operations, there’s still plenty of inspiration to be drawn from their site. Specifically, how it manages to work so well even with so much going on.
Why Their Website is One of the Best: The Gensler website has a lot of information it needs to share. And it needs to do so cleanly, without overwhelming the visitor. It achieves this by leveraging top bar navigation and employing a strong CTA strategy, ensuring visitors are never in doubt about where to click next.
Specific features that any architecture firm could seek to emulate include:
- CTA buttons for most content sections, giving visitors clear actions to take next
- Clean, comprehensive top bar navigation that anticipates the likely inquiries a visitor may have
- A robust catalog of original content, engaging visitors while building SEO
Key Design Elements for Architect Websites
Every single page of an architect’s website should be built with the client’s needs in mind. That means anticipating their questions, assuaging potential concerns, and leading them on to logical next steps through intuitive, unobtrusive, and image-rich design.
To achieve this, here are a few different steps you can take when developing your site:
Let the Images do (Most of) the Talking
While having a healthy amount of copy is important for SEO factors like domain authority and rankings, it should take a backseat to the imagery on architecture websites. Leading with project photography (or even videography for the forward-thinking) will speak more to your firm’s strengths and abilities than any standalone text could. Reserve long-form content for appropriate subpages, such as:
- Project descriptions
- About us pages
- Articles
- Insights
- Staff profiles
Define What Makes Your Firm Different
Though your homepage should dedicate the bulk of its real estate to imagery, that doesn’t mean it should be completely devoid of text. Even if it features no other copy besides headers, it should still include a succinct differentiator that helps define your firm. Aim for one to three sentences that explain your design ethos and highlight who your firm caters to.
Examples:
Mohagen Hansen: “Our full service planning, architecture and interior design firm specializes in designing optimized buildings and spaces that enhance productivity and reflect your unique culture.”
Selldorf Architects: “Since its inception the firm’s design ethos has been deeply rooted in the principles of humanism. At every scale and for every condition, Selldorf Architects designs for the individual experience. As a result, its work is brought to life-and made complete-by those who use it.”
Make Projects Prominent and Searchable
Navigating to a searchable, visual database of your past projects helps visitors quickly confirm the quality of your work for themselves, particularly as it relates to their specific interests.
One effective strategy is to employ a navigation bar at the top of your website with a drop-down menu that leads to curated pages, one for each industry you serve (see Mohagen Hansen). Another option is to have a single page featuring all your projects that gives visitors the option to filter results by industry (see Gensler).
Call Your Visitors to Action
Frequent and clear CTA’s help visitors stay on your page and guide them towards desired actions, such as filling out a contact form. For websites, these CTAs typically take the form of distinct buttons.
Common placements for CTAs include:
- A button in the navigation bar, typically on the top right, directing visitors to “View Our Work” or “Contact Us”
- A button at the end of a content block encouraging a visitor to “Learn more” or “Get started”
- A button following a content carousel of post highlights, inviting visitors to “View latest research”, “See more insights”, or “Check us out” on social media
Make it Easy to Manage
Finally, a great website needs to be easy for you or your marketing partner to keep updated with fresh content, otherwise your firm will inevitably slip out of the search engine rankings over time. Neglected websites are also prone to broken code, missing links, and other navigational problems that can make potential clients doubt your quality as a professional.
At Vnzo AEC, we’re particularly strong advocates of Webflow for architects. We’re not even sponsored to say that; they’re really just that good. It’s a codeless platform that fully facilitates the photography and videography-rich designs that architects depend on. And so long as your CMS is well-structured, it’s supremely easy to keep your website updated with new blog posts, project pages, and employee profiles, ensuring potential clients always have an up-to-date view of your firm.
Want a Website that Works Harder for Your Firm?
If your website isn’t reflecting the excellent quality of your work, attracting organic leads in the process, then it’s not doing its job. That’s where we come in.
With Vnzo AEC, you can fire your underperforming design and develop a webpage that’s truly top-of-the-line. Your work is something to be proud of, and we’ll build you a site that reflects that with a beautiful, intuitive design. Schedule a consultation today to see what Vnzo AEC can do for you!
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