Why a brand that isn't real
The flagship tier needed something to point at
Studio is our flagship - bespoke, custom-coded, the kind of site that gets built once and then gets remembered. The problem with selling that tier is that the work which proves it is usually under NDA, half-finished, or three years old.
So we built one from nothing. AURA is a drinks brand that does not exist, given the full treatment: name, identity, art direction, and a site built the way we would build it for a brand that did.
Clearly a concept
- The brand is fictional and we say so everywhere
- No client, no product, nothing for sale
- Built to the standard we would ship
- Live, so you can put it on your own phone
The build
Real-time 3D, in a browser, at sixty frames
The site is custom-coded - real-time 3D running in WebGL, scroll choreography, a horizontal-locked flavour sequence and type that behaves like a physical surface rather than text on a page.
The interesting engineering is not the effects, it is making them survive contact with real devices. The build tiers itself by capability: it detects low-power hardware and browsers that struggle, and serves a lighter scene rather than a broken one. A showpiece that only works on the machine it was built on is not a showpiece.
Under the hood
- Real-time 3D in WebGL, not video
- Scroll-driven choreography throughout
- Performance-tiered - lighter scene on low-power devices
- Deployed and public, not a screen recording
What it proves
The ceiling, not the average
Most of what we build is not AURA, and it should not be. A local business needs a fast, clear site that brings in enquiries, and we build plenty of those.
AURA exists to answer a different question: when a brand has something worth looking at and the budget to do it properly, how far can this studio go? This far.
