Inspiration: Agency Website 'Hello Monday'

While doing some research for a previous blog article of mine on the project management and accounting software Hello Bonsai (you can read the article here), I stumbled across the digital agency Hello Monday and was super impressed by their portfolio website. This is why I decided to do a short & sweet write-up on their and in particular their agency site, so it might serve as a source of inspiration for other creatives and freelancers who are (re)-building their site (and which designer isn’t doing that at a couple of times a year?).

Smart animations & page transitions

Hello Monday is a digital agency that is creating digital products and experiences swell as branding for clients as diverse as National Geographic, Google and ESPN. They've got offices in New York, Copenhagen and Aarhus (Denmark). So, what's great about their site? Everything! Right on the landing page they show you exactly what they do using nifty typography as well as an animated illustration. But what’s really nice are the mouse hover interactions when you move your mouse over one of the portfolio thumbnails: the thumbnail crumbles and twitches with the corners being moved inwards depending on the movements of your mouse. Pretty cool! What is also interesting is that on desktop the navigation menu is revealed only when the user hovers with his mouse to the right hand side of the screen. Bad user experience? Well, the user is learning about the fact that there’s a navigation menu available when he first arrives at the homepage, where the menu is initially revealed and only moves off the screen when the user scrolls downwards. To be fair, I’m not sure how well this works for people with (vision) impairments or special needs that require screen readers and other assisted technology to browse the web. However, on mobile the navigation menu turns into a more traditional hamburger menu anyway, that is visible at all times, while still featuring a smooth slide in/out animation when pressed. Obviously the cool mouse-over effect applied to the portfolio thumbnails is not visible on mobile but the page transitions are still there.Page transitions? Well, when moving from page to page a brief full-page transition/animation– looking a bit like dripping paint - is triggered before the actual page appears. Additional the case studies in the portfolio section are presented nicely with large imagery and bold typography that’s easy on the eye. Hello Monday also makes it easy for potential clients to get in touch by including all contact details on every page, providing a different contact address for each inquiry. Subtle and smooth animations triggered by the user, have been used all over the site and really make for a quite seamless and coherent experience. Well done, Hello Monday!

You can find the actual website here: http://www.hellomonday.com

Final thoughts

The site triggers a few thoughts and consideration in me. Naturally, as a Webflow web designer I wonder: can I build effects like this easily in Webflow? And: what can I learn from this site and incorporate in my own work – not necessarily (only) from a visual point of view but also in terms of content and structure? After all the site is set up simply but effectively with straight forward, no-nonsense case studies that provide context to the work displayed. So, I invite you to check out the site and see what you can take away for your own future projects. I will certainly keep the site bookmarked in my “Inspiration” folder for future reference! Thanks Hello Monday!