Case Study · Branding & Web Design
Problem: An architecture and engineering firm was telling prospective clients not to visit their own website — because it undersold everything they actually do.
Solution: The Full SEEN Experience — a 5-day intensive covering market research, content strategy, brand design, and a fully custom-coded website built for a cinematic, immersive feel.
The Client
Waves AE is a multidisciplinary studio combining architecture, landscape design, structural and civil engineering, and experiential design — from resorts and water parks to zoos, campgrounds, and entertainment venues. Led by Jason Havens and Brian Kulpa, the firm partners on large-scale destination projects and was actively working to grow its immersive design practice as a share of the business.
Where the Business Was
Waves AE's actual work spanned everything from mountain lodges to water parks to zoo habitats to large-scale immersive destinations — sophisticated, technically demanding design and engineering. Almost none of that showed up online. The site had been thrown together quickly to satisfy basic compliance, and it leaned hard into one narrow slice of the business: water play.
The mismatch had real consequences. A lead on a large-scale project came in — and after visiting the site, questioned whether the firm could actually handle work at that scale. The team's answer wasn't to fix the site. It was to route around it: telling prospective clients not to bother visiting, and emailing project imagery directly instead.
That's not a sustainable growth strategy for a firm trying to shift more of its business toward large, immersive, marquee-level work.
The Diagnostic
A prospect walked away from a major opportunity after visiting the site. Rather than trust it to represent the firm, the team started routing people around it entirely.
The site's water-play focus buried the architecture, civil engineering, and immersive design work that made up most of the firm's actual pipeline.
Sophisticated 3D scans, before/after walkthroughs, and video and motion work the team was already producing had nowhere to live online.
Waves AE was actively working to grow immersive design as a share of the business, and needed a site that could sell that shift — not just describe the status quo.
The Process
A five-day intensive, run against the same framework used to diagnose the gaps — moving from client interviews to a fully live, custom-coded website in one week.
Built client avatars across the firm's real buyer range — park directors, resort owners, zoo executives, campground developers, corporate facilities teams — to reposition Waves AE as credible for both a boutique remodel and a large-scale destination project.
Built messaging to showcase the full spectrum of services — from Matterport 3D scans and floor plans to marquee immersive work — instead of leading with one narrow niche.
A brand and visual design pass built around the firm's own renderings and photography, translated into the cinematic, story-driven feel the team wanted their audience to experience.
A fully hand-coded build inside WordPress — custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, not a theme — so the site itself could demonstrate the kind of immersive design the firm sells.
The Build
Waves AE wanted visitors to feel the same immersive, experiential design sensibility the firm builds for its clients — so the site was hand-coded to move, not just load.
Custom-built content tiles that transform and reveal as a visitor scrolls, tuned to work correctly across desktop and mobile.
Full-bleed background video with a black-to-transparent gradient overlay, so headline copy stays legible over motion.
Deliberately slowed scroll transitions that hold on a photo-realistic render, giving the work room to be seen rather than rushed past.
The Result
The live site opens with “Design That Moves People” — a cinematic sequence in place of the old static water-play banner — and immediately widens the frame with “The Power of Integrated Design,” positioning architecture, engineering, and experience as one connected practice.
“The Industries We Shape” now spans the firm's full range — hospitality & resorts, recreation & entertainment, architecture/engineering/planning, zoos & cultural destinations, and indoor/outdoor hospitality — instead of only water play. “The Waves Approach” gives large prospects the confidence signals they need, while the breadth of industries keeps the door open for smaller clients.
Motion carries through the whole site, so a visitor experiences the same immersive design sensibility the firm is trying to sell — before they've read a single word about it.
If your website is a liability instead of a sales tool, let's fix that.
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