Designing and building my own agency's site, end-to-end
Lead Designer and Webflow Developer · Strategy to launch
Summary
I redesigned and rebuilt Tangerine Creative Agency's website: 15+ pages, end-to-end in Webflow. Strategy, visual design, copywriting direction, and development were all mine. The hardest part wasn't the design: it was collapsing seven loosely-defined services into three focused offerings, against real internal resistance. After launch, inbound shifted toward better-fit clients.
15+
Pages designed and built solo
7 → 3
Services consolidated into focused offerings
↑ Fit
Inbound shifted toward better-fit clients post launch
Solution
A site that finally sounds as confident as the work
Positioning first, pixels second
The new homepage leads with who Tangerine is for and the three things it does best, instead of a catalog of everything it could conceivably do.
A team page that builds trust
Real people, real roles, and a visual system consistent with the rest of the site, because agency clients buy the team as much as the portfolio.
Overview
Your own agency is the hardest client of all.
Tangerine's existing website didn't communicate the quality of the work. It listed services without positioning, showed credentials without confidence, and felt like it was designed to avoid controversy rather than attract the right clients.
I led the project end-to-end: strategy, visual design, copywriting direction, and Webflow development across all 15+ pages. Everything except copy was mine.
Problem
The site didn't communicate confidence or focus.
The agency offered seven loosely-defined services across too many industries. To a potential client evaluating agencies, this read as unfocused. The visual system was inconsistent, the hierarchy wasn't directing attention, and there was no clear story of who Tangerine was for.
Being an internal project doesn't make stakeholder management easier. It makes it harder: everyone has an opinion, no one has a decision-making mandate, and the feedback loops don't close.
Goals
What visitors needed, and what the agency needed from them.
Visitor goal
Understand within seconds what Tangerine does and whether it fits their problem
Business goal
More qualified inbound, fewer small one-off requests
Visitor goal
See proof: real work, real team, real outcomes
Business goal
A site the team is proud to send in every proposal
Design process
Research made the case that opinions couldn't.
I started with competitive research and client interviews rather than moodboards, because the real problem was positioning, not aesthetics. The data pointed clearly to three services driving the most qualified inbound: Product, Brand, and Growth. With that established, I rebuilt the information architecture around those three, designed the system in Figma, and developed everything in Webflow, iterating page by page with the team.
The call
Collapsing seven services into three met significant internal resistance. People felt their area was being deprioritized. The research is what made the decision hold: I could show which services actually drove qualified leads rather than argue taste. After launch, inbound shifted toward better-fit clients and away from small one-off requests.
Reflection
My key takeaways and learnings
Internal projects need a single owner
Without one person holding actual decision-making authority, every design decision becomes a negotiation with no deadline. I'd establish a project owner before any pixel is moved.
Focus is a design decision
The biggest impact didn't come from visuals. It came from information architecture and positioning. Deciding what not to say was the most valuable design work on the project.
How I'd use AI on this today
Prototype the argument
Instead of debating the service consolidation in meetings, I'd ship AI-built prototypes of both site structures and put them in front of past clients within days.
Draft content variations faster
Fifteen pages of headlines and section copy took weeks of back and forth. I'd draft variations with AI and spend the meetings choosing, not writing.
Curious to know more?
The site is live at tangerinecreative.agency, or get in touch to hear the full story.
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