02 what it is
Not a template with your logo on it
Designed around your work, built from scratch, animated so it feels alive.
Many off-the-shelf themes share the same visual patterns. That can be practical, but it leaves less room for a business whose point of view is part of the offer.
A cinematic site uses full-bleed imagery, confident type, and motion that answers the scroll to build a deliberate visual story around that point of view.
A deliberate first impression
Motion and scale can establish hierarchy, pacing, and atmosphere without asking decoration to do the strategy.
Looks like your actual work
A stock template quietly undersells you. The site should set the expectation your work delivers.
Performance-aware and findable
Media is compressed and deferred where appropriate, while titles, descriptions, semantic content, and static paths stay available.
Yours to keep
You own the site and the domain. Nothing locked behind a builder subscription.
This website, running live
The live proof is the site you're on. The sea in the footer and the scroll sequence described below are running here now.
tidesocialstudio.com
Tide's own site is a live demonstration rather than a flattened mockup. The interface, motion, and fallback behavior are running here, with no stock theme underneath.
The implementation is inspectable too. Video loading is deferred until it approaches the viewport, type is self-hosted, and the cinematic homepage has static, reduced-motion, and constrained-data paths.
A canvas fluid drawn as a halftone dot screen, following the pointer across the hero.
The hero is a sheet that lifts off the stage beneath it, one beat of scroll at a time.
A graded video sea that the linen page eases down into.
Oversized display type, a self-hosted face, and a cursor state per target.
Use the homepage and footer to inspect the implementation directly. This demonstrates the build itself, not a client conversion result.
04 deliverables
What's included
Everything needed to go from nothing to live. No surprise line items.
Design and build
- ✓Custom design, no template or theme
- ✓A full-bleed motion hero built around your best asset
- ✓Scroll reveals and transitions tuned per section
- ✓Up to five core pages
- ✓Mobile and tablet layouts, not just a shrunken desktop
Technical and launch
- ✓Modern responsive build with compressed media
- ✓Search basics: titles, descriptions, sitemap, share images
- ✓Contact form that emails you directly
- ✓Domain connection and going live, handled
- ✓Two weeks of support after launch
05 process
How it runs
Four phases, four to six weeks, two points where you review before anything moves on.
Discovery and direction
A kickoff call and a short questionnaire. I come back with structure, references, and the feeling we're building toward.
Design the key pages
The homepage and one interior page first, since those set the language for everything else.
Build and animate
The approved design becomes a responsive site, with motion and media behavior tested in the browser where they live.
Launch and hand off
Domain connected, final checks on real devices, then a walkthrough so nothing feels like a black box.
06 investment
What it costs
A clear starting point and an honest list of what moves it, so you can place yourself before we ever talk.
From $4,000
for a custom site, designed, built, and launched
The starting price covers the core scope listed above. Added commerce, copy, integrations, or brand work can move the final quote.
Two payments, half to book and half before launch. You get a fixed quote first, so the number doesn't move unless you ask for something new.
07 questions
Questions
Full-bleed imagery or video instead of boxed thumbnails, oversized type with room to breathe, and motion that responds to the scroll rather than firing at random. The point is a deliberate visual story with a clear path through the page, not motion for its own sake.
Motion can add cost if it's handled carelessly. Tide compresses and defers video, sizes and lazy-loads images, self-hosts type, and preserves a complete static path so the atmosphere doesn't replace basic usability.
The typical target is four to six weeks from kickoff to launch. Scope, content readiness, technical integrations, and feedback timing determine the schedule before work begins.
Time for a kickoff call, a short questionnaire, your logo and any brand assets, your photos or video if you have them, and reasonably prompt feedback at two review points. If you don't have imagery, we'll talk about options early.
No. Hosting, domains, and deployment are handled as part of the project. At the end you get a walkthrough so you know where everything lives and how to make small updates.
Yes. I'll show you how to make everyday text and image changes, and you'll have the walkthrough to refer back to. For bigger changes, you can hire me for a small block of time rather than paying an ongoing retainer.
Your domain, which is usually around twenty dollars a year, and hosting, which for most sites of this kind lands at little to nothing. There's no required monthly platform fee.
That's common. We can rebuild it, keep your existing content and search history intact, and redirect the old pages so nothing you've earned gets lost.
That's what the two review points are for, and why we design the homepage before building anything. Revisions are built into each stage, so we course-correct while it's cheap and easy rather than at the end.
The project includes guidance on structure and what each section needs to say, and I'll refine what you provide. Full copywriting from scratch is available as an add-on.