Stuart Carlisle

Stuart Carlisle is a London-based interior design studio with a portfolio of residential projects across Chiswick, Wimbledon, Belsize Park, and Marylebone. They came to me with a Wix site that wasn’t working for them.

What wasn’t working

The existing site was slow. The design didn’t match the quality of the studio’s work. For an interior design business where first impressions are everything, the website was doing them a disservice. They also had updated content and project photography ready to go but no clean way to get it onto the site.

They didn’t just want a new build. They wanted someone who’d stick around afterwards to manage content updates, make changes when new projects were shot, and keep the site running properly. Not a hand-off, an ongoing relationship.

What I built

A custom single-page application in Vue 3 with Vite, styled with Tailwind CSS. The site is image-led, as it should be for an interior design portfolio. Six project case studies, each with its own page and gallery. A hero slideshow that crossfades between four full-bleed interior shots with a subtle Ken Burns zoom.

The animation work is where the site comes together. Project images start hidden and reveal themselves on scroll. Each image container begins at zero height and grows downward as you scroll past, clipped by its parent. The effect is a bit like turning pages in a physical portfolio. Text fades in with staggered timing. Page transitions use a full-screen colour overlay that expands and collapses with eased timing. None of it is aggressive. It’s quiet movement that lets the photography do the talking.

Everything runs through GSAP with ScrollTrigger handling the scroll-based timing. The combination of image reveals, text fades, and page transitions gives the site a cohesive rhythm that suits the work being presented.

The ongoing bit

There’s no CMS. Content lives in the codebase. When the studio finishes a new project and has photography ready, I update the site directly. It’s a deliberate choice. A CMS would add complexity they don’t need. They send me the images and copy, I push the update, usually same day. It’s been working like this since launch.

This is what they asked for in the first meeting. Someone who’d handle it. Not a platform to learn, not a login to remember.

Where it landed

The site replaced a Wix build with something that actually represents the studio’s work. It’s been live since early 2024 with regular content updates as new projects complete. Built solo, working directly with the studio.

“Oscar was a pleasure to work with. He listened to my brief and understood the design details I wanted to achieve. Options were thoughtfully and clearly offered and once decided executed swiftly and skilfully. My website is exactly how I envisioned it and I couldn’t be happier with the end result. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Oscar and his services! Thank you!”

— Emily Carlisle, Founder

If you’re a studio or small business stuck on a builder-platform site that isn’t doing your work justice, get in touch. I also work with clients in London and across the UK.