Six homepages for the trendsetter brief
Your five directions rebuilt for the new audience (fashion and culture people, young wealthy Indians, startup founders, NRIs, a global crowd), plus one new direction drawn straight from the study. Same content on all six, your letter word for word, The Other Land priced.
Open each page on a laptop and on your phone. A bar at the bottom switches between all six and the study. Nothing on the live site has changed.
The Index
Familjen Grotesk with DM Mono for dates and prices, white, ink and one cobalt blue. Framed photographs with captions, the departures as photographed cards with dates and prices in a mono, the wordmark huge in the footer. Loewe and Lemaire restraint, Prior's plainly priced departures. The purest expression of the study, and my pick for this audience.
Open I
Atlas
Schibsted Grotesk only, indigo and chalk, marigold on one button. Travel facts as design because they are real: coordinates, flight time from Mumbai, time zone, the month squares that fill in. Priced, photographed departures on indigo with the month squares. Confident and expert; nobody else in travel looks like this.
Open B
Journal
Newsreader on paper with ink only, no accent. Ten numbered chapters, a mounted hero plate that opens to full width as you scroll, captions under every photo, the departures photographed. The most editorial; your letter reads best here.
Open H
Quiet
Libre Caslon with Hanken Grotesk, pure white, oxblood links only. The hero cross fades Mirissa, the Sahara and Camps Bay with the place name changing under the photo. The calmest; closest to Soho House and Prior.
Open A
Window
Bodoni Moda with Albert Sans on limestone, indigo buttons, turmeric on the price only. One wide arch frames the hero and opens as you scroll; the arch is the only curve on the page. The most Indian without a single motif.
Open G
Mirror
Gloock with Hanken Grotesk, white with the night lake only in the hero and the closing band. The headline reflects and ripples on laptops; three traveller chips under the hero switch the matched route and its price. The most cinematic.
Open FWhat is the same on all six
- One master copy: the curious headline, the new line under it, the priced Sri Lanka departure in the hero, the season as six photographed departures with prices, the three sample routes, your full letter, the five quotes, The First Draft, the closing band.
- One layout system (one width, a 12 column grid in halves, thirds and quarters, equal section spacing, three photo shapes) and one type scale: 48 / 32 / 17 on laptop, 32 / 26 / 16 on phones.
- One motion budget: a hero entrance, headings and photos settling once, hovers, and exactly one signature moment per page. Phones get the light version.
- Text on photos tested against four stress photos (white sand, bright sky, white temple, pale pool) so the hero still reads when you change the picture.
Verification record
Every page was checked by its builder and then again by me, independently, at 1440 and 390 wide.
| Check | A | B | F | G | H | I |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Horizontal overflow, off screen, overlapping or clipped text | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Text over photos failing contrast on four stress photos | 0 of 22 | 0 of 16 | 0 of 23 | 0 of 22 | 0 of 17 | 0 of 24 |
| Your letter, word for word (10 blocks) | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Hyphens or dashes in visible text | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| The word luxury, "on a call", seat count in hero | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Left edges on grid lines only, equal section spacing, three photo shapes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
Round eight (30 Oct): the season is six photographed departure cards (a swipe rail on phones) and the three sample routes each have a photo; every photo slot audited. Found and fixed in round seven: a head ordering bug that switched off every animation on real phones, and a smooth scroll rule that hid elements from the checker.