Cache Estate · Indio, California · Round 2
Ten landing-page directions for Cache Estate — not a site redesign. Every page here is a single, self-contained first-impression concept; nothing else on the live site changes. All ten stay inside the estate's real ink/bone/gold identity rather than borrowing someone else's palette, and each one has its own deliberate animation signature.
Round 1's four concepts (still on disk, not linked here) went too far from the brand and felt generic. This round has three tracks: refining what's already live, pushing it somewhere bolder without losing the brand, and a set built specifically to be the strongest fit for this property.
Track 01
Not a new brand — the same black/bone/gold identity the live site already runs, taken further with more nerve: bigger type moments, more considered choreography, more confident use of gold as trim rather than fill.
01
The dark, weighted take — near-black carries the whole page, not just the hero, with gold used sparingly and the estate shown mostly after dark.
MotionA slow 2.6s word-by-word headline reveal, right-to-left ink-mask image wipes, and a looping gold-dot marquee trim — deliberately heavier and slower than the live site.
02
The airy, editorial take — bone/cream forward, daylight photography, magazine-style margin captions and thin precise rules instead of heavy scrims.
MotionQuick clip-path curtain wipes instead of translate-fades, an aperture-style hero reveal, and gold underlines that draw themselves in — snappier and lighter than Nocturne or the live site.
Track 02
The boldness this time comes from structure, typography and motion — not from switching to an unrelated color story. All four stay inside the ink/bone/gold family; the daring is in how each one is built.
01
Survey-document structure — a fixed scroll-spy index rail, giant outline numerals behind each section, and stats laid out as a field-notes table.
MotionA custom crosshair cursor with a live X/Y coordinate readout, plus "ruler-sweep" reveals — a thin gold line draws itself across before each section rises.
02
Typography-as-hero — "Cache Estate" set enormous with an aerial photo clipped inside the letterforms, plus a diagonal ticker band cutting across.
MotionThe photo-in-text pans with mouse/scroll parallax; nav opens as unfurling vertical "blinds"; images sit in duotone and "develop" into color on hover.
03
Cinematic/widescreen structure — letterbox bars slide open like a shutter, a live timecode readout, and a scrubber bar standing in for conventional nav.
MotionOccasions and gallery run as horizontal drag-to-scroll filmstrips with snap points and a grab/grabbing cursor, rather than vertical grids.
04
Brutalist-luxury bento composition — an exposed hairline grid hidden until a cursor-following spotlight reveals it, images bleeding outside asymmetric boxes.
MotionStat numerals glitch-jitter into place on scroll; nav is a literal 2×2 grid swatch in the corner that expands on hover — no link bar at all.
Track 03
Four independent, considered answers to "what genuinely suits this property best" — refined variations within the real palette, differentiated by craft and point of view rather than by picking four different color wheels.
01
Warm daytime magazine treatment with slightly warmer ink/gold values — the estate at its most inviting, sun-forward.
MotionThe hero image opens desaturated and pulled-in, then visibly warms to full color as it settles — "the light arriving." Cursor is a small ember dot with a soft trailing glow.
02
Near-black canvas throughout, deeper and cooler than the live site — gold used only as glowing accents, a black-tie/nocturnal read.
MotionHero opens on pure black, a gold beam sweeps open like stage curtains, headline words ignite in sequence. Occasion cards have a cursor "torch" that spotlights true brightness through a dimmed photo.
03
The most restrained of the ten — paper/bone-dominant, gold used only as thin structural rule lines, styled like a private offering memorandum.
MotionThe aerial site-plan hero opens grayscale and "verifies" into color as gold survey lines and registration marks draw themselves in. Cursor is a minimal thin gold crosshair.
04
Closest to the live palette exactly — differentiated by composition: a cinematic walk down the olive axis arcing day → dusk → night across the scroll.
MotionHero dollies forward from a blurred distance shot as a gold "axis" line draws down the center, then "Cache Estate" reveals via a per-letter clip-path wipe. Cursor is a five-point fading comet trail.