Amie Corley Interiors is an interior design firm based in St. Louis, MO. Amie is known for her vivid, whimsical approach to traditional design. Her work has been featured in Domino, Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, and Sophisticated Living.
When Amie approached us about modernizing her portfolio, we knew it would be important to create a site that let Amie’s work take the lead. We wanted to create a tool that showcases her work, not itself.
Common challenges with designer portfolios
A portfolio site for a designer is a different animal from most business websites. The purpose isn’t to explain or persuade — it’s to showcase the client’s work. The site design itself is often secondary, and shouldn’t detract from the work.
Amie’s design is colorful, layered, and full of personality. The website needed to present her work without competing with it. No flashy animations, no heavy branding, no design tricks that pull attention away from the rooms themselves.
Designers also usually have a vision of what they want. When working with clients who are designers — but not web designers — we have to interpret their vision into something that works on the web. This relationship usually results in a lot of collaboration and tweaking until it all clicks.
Staying in the background
We built the Amie Corley Interiors website on WordPress with a fully custom theme designed around one principle: the photography comes first. The layout is minimal and intentional, and the navigation is simple. Visitors can get to the work quickly and focus on it once they’re there.
Each project page is a full-screen gallery of images with no surrounding clutter. When a potential client is browsing Amie’s portfolio, the experience should feel like flipping through a beautifully curated lookbook.
The homepage follows the same philosophy. Instead of a text-heavy introduction, it leads with beautiful photos of Amie’s favorite projects. Her style and approach are clear as soon as you visit her site.
Easy to manage, optimized for delivery
A portfolio is only useful if it stays current. Amie’s website is powered by a minimal, custom gallery plugin and a custom theme. We utilize a combination of native and custom blocks, so updates feel familiar and straightforward.
Every project we build is optimized for performance, regardless of how simple the design may be. Images are served by Cloudflare, assets are minified, and pages are cached as static HTML.
We love building websites for small businesses because the projects usually come with the best collaboration. Portfolio projects are no different. It’s been great to work with Amie over the years, and this project was no different.
If you’re interested in talking about your new project or existing website, don’t hesitate to reach out.