MariaRoig

The challenge

MariaRoig is an independent graphic design studio: identities, editorial, packaging, art direction. In this craft, the website has to do two things that don’t always fit together. It has to sell the studio (the prospective client should understand in thirty seconds what it does and why it would fit them) and it has to be the studio (the site itself should be a piece of design coherent with the portfolio it shows). A pretty site with flat copy sells little. A clear but ugly site disqualifies the studio before you open a project.

The brief was to solve both with minimal operational friction. MariaRoig designs. She doesn’t want to maintain a website. Anything that required touching code to publish a new project was out.

What we built

• Site on Wix with a customised template: typography, grid and palette designed so the projects are the protagonists, not the site itself.
• Per-project portfolio: each project with its own page (client, piece type, year, full-bleed photography), one-handed navigation on mobile.
• Studio page without ornament: who she is, how she works and with what kind of clients. It is for the visitor who wants to know why to choose her.
• Direct contact: short form + visible email, no funnels.
• Editor in the client’s hands: adding a new project is duplicating another project’s page, swapping images and publishing, without calling a developer.

Technical decisions that mattered

1. Wix, not a custom CMS

For a one-person studio, building a custom WordPress or an Astro/Next site with a custom panel is a romantic choice that gets paid every time you have to update a plugin, renew a certificate or work out why the editor is down. Wix handles hosting, certificate, backups, visual editor and updates for a flat fee, and frees MariaRoig from all of it. The rule here: maintenance cost is part of total site cost, not a footnote.

2. The template lets the portfolio take centre stage

Neutral typography, generous grid, lots of white, restrained animations. The site doesn’t compete with the projects for the visitor’s attention: it frames them. That restraint is what shows least and counts most. A well-presented portfolio on a sober site looks like serious work. The same portfolio inside a busy template looks amateur.

3. Editorial autonomy from day one

The client doesn’t call us to publish a new project. All it takes is duplicating the previous project’s page, swapping images and publishing, something anyone who has used a visual editor knows how to do. Result: the site stays current with no recurring cost.

Outcome

MariaRoig has a site that presents the studio and is, in itself, a sample of her work. And it doesn’t ask her for more time than she has. The platform updates whenever a new project comes in, not waiting for a "refresh" every two years. And the most underrated decision in hindsight: not having built a custom CMS. What for a hundred-person studio would be reasonable, for a one-person studio is a maintenance burden charged every month.