Build & Systems · Consulting
Corporate Website Design & 3D Web Experiences: Build a Site That Reads as Expensive
Most corporate sites look like a template with the logo swapped. The fix is craft and a performance budget, not a bigger hero image.
The problem
What this usually looks like
Your website is the first thing a buyer, a partner or an acquirer sees, and it looks like every other site built on the same theme. The stock photography, the three-column feature grid and the gradient button are all recognisable, and a serious buyer recognises them too. Meanwhile the site that does try to look premium is slow, jumps around while it loads, and stutters on the animation it was built for. Both versions cost you credibility, and one of them costs you rankings as well.
How I approach it
I design the site as a system rather than a set of pages: type scale, spacing, colour and depth defined once and applied consistently, so the whole thing holds together. Where 3D belongs. A product you need to rotate, a facility you need to walk, a machine whose scale is hard to describe in words. I build it in WebGL and light it properly, because depth, material and shadow are what make a page read as expensive. Where 3D does not earn its place, I leave it out, because a stuttering effect reads worse than no effect at all. Every build ships against a hard performance budget and is handed over in a CMS your team can actually run.
Scope
What I actually do
Build the design system first, type scale, spacing rhythm, colour tokens, elevation and motion rules, so every page is consistent instead of individually art-directed.
Design and build the corporate site: home, products or services, capabilities, leadership, careers, case studies and contact, structured for how buyers actually read.
Build WebGL and three.js product, equipment and facility showcases with real lighting, materials and input-driven motion rather than decorative spin.
Set a hard performance budget up front, asset weight, draw calls, frame time, main-thread work, and hold the build to it on real mid-range devices, not just a workstation.
Optimise Core Web Vitals: largest contentful paint, interaction latency and layout stability, measured in the field and not only in the lab.
Meet WCAG accessibility requirements, including keyboard paths, contrast, focus states, motion-reduction preferences and a non-3D route to the same information.
Implement technical SEO structure, semantic markup, schema, metadata, sitemaps and internal linking, so the design work is actually findable.
Hand over on a CMS with documented components, so your marketing team can publish without calling a developer.
Deliverables
What you get
- Design system with tokens, components and usage documentation
- Fully built and deployed corporate website
- WebGL or 3D showcase modules where they earn their place, with graceful fallbacks
- Written performance budget plus before-and-after Core Web Vitals measurements
- Accessibility audit and remediation record
- CMS setup with component documentation and editor training
- Analytics, event tracking and conversion instrumentation
Outcomes
What changes
- The site stops reading as a template and starts reading as a company worth buying from
- Pages load and respond fast enough that visitors do not leave before the content appears
- 3D is used where it explains something, not where it slows the page down
- Marketing can update content without a developer in the loop
- Accessibility and performance requirements are documented rather than assumed
Engagement
How we work together
Full corporate website design and build
Design system and component library only, for your in-house team to build against
3D or WebGL module added to an existing site
Performance, accessibility and Core Web Vitals remediation on a site you already have
Questions
Straight answers
Does my company actually need 3D on the website?
Often not. 3D earns its place when the thing you sell is hard to understand from a photograph, equipment with scale, a configurable product, a facility a buyer would otherwise have to visit. If a good photo and clear copy do the job, I say so and we spend the budget on speed and clarity instead. A stuttering effect makes a company look less credible, not more.
Won't 3D and animation slow the site down?
It will if nobody sets a limit. That is why the performance budget is agreed before the design starts: asset weight, frame time and main-thread work are treated as requirements, and anything that breaks them either gets optimised or gets cut. Every 3D module ships with a static fallback for low-power devices and for visitors who ask for reduced motion.
Why do most corporate websites look the same?
Because they are the same, a purchased theme, stock photography and default spacing, with the logo and colours changed. What separates a site that reads as expensive is craft in the details: a deliberate type scale, consistent spacing, real lighting and material depth, and restraint about motion. None of that comes in the box.
Can our team maintain the site after you finish?
That is the point of the handover. The site ships on a CMS with documented, reusable components, so your marketing team edits content and builds new pages without touching code. I train the editors and leave written documentation for whoever comes next.
Related
Services that usually go with this
AI Implementation & Automation Consulting
Self-hosted models, real workflows and measurable hours saved. No hype, no per-token surprise bills.
Marketing, SEO & Demand Generation
Marketing built by someone who has to live with the leads it produces.
Trade Show & Event Management
I design it, build it, staff it, sell from it and follow up after it.
Landing Pages & Conversion Rate Optimisation
Most conversion problems are message problems, and most sites do not have the traffic to test their way out of them.
Hiring instead of contracting? See the full-time roles, or the ATS-formatted resume.
Contact
Tell me what you are hiring for
- Call: +1 519 278 5085
- Email: tim@timarmstrong.ca
- Based: London & Southwestern Ontario, Ontario, America/Toronto (Eastern Time)
- Availability: Available nationally across Canada, on-site, hybrid or remote
- Serving: London · Stratford · Woodstock · Kitchener: Waterloo · Cambridge · Guelph · Brantford · Sarnia · Chatham-Kent · Windsor · Toronto · Mississauga and Canada-wide