Designing a Creative Agency Portfolio Site with Squarespace
McLane Teitel believes creative and advertising campaigns are more than just the story they tell. The Squarespace product design manager knows there’s a story behind every campaign story that’s worth telling.
“It’s important to give people insight into where an idea came from,” he said. “To show the thinking that went into a campaign instead of just the finished product.”
McLane not only uses his design chops to make templates for millions of customers, but also to build portfolio and case study sites for the Squarespace in-house creative agency. His unique presentations capture the team’s workflow in a way that represents their full creative journey and doesn’t just celebrate the results.
“Out in the world, someone might just see your campaign on a billboard or in a commercial,” he said. “But with a website, there’s so much more you can show — like other concepts you explored and the full range and quality of your work.”
McLane began building creative campaign sites for Squarespace in 2017 to highlight that year’s Big Game ad collaboration with a famous actor. By using a mix of multimedia, storytelling and campaign analytics, Teitel represented the partnership in a way that netted the Squarespace creative team multiple industry awards.
Since then, he’s continued to refine his process and draw inspiration from the latest design trends to showcase other Squarespace creative ventures — and he encourages every agency to follow suit by building their own websites.
“It doesn’t have to take a long time,” he said. “With an intuitive platform, you can focus on what you do best — storytelling — without having to rely on coding skills.” His tips for creating a stunning campaign site include using text as art and using pull quotes to set apart thematic elements.
Rather than publishing all information upfront, he suggests enticing visitors to scroll down the page by setting up a narrative flow with bite-sized reveals. Campaign sites can serve as a deep-dive look at a specific campaign or a library of multiple examples to preserve them for posterity.
“With Squarespace, you can easily duplicate sections of your site to test things — try different narrative flows, layouts and arrangements,” McLane said. He also recommends drafting rock-solid copy before adding it to your site and using a mixture of images and video to enhance the story.
These tactics will help your agency stand out competitively, which McLane calls a must.
“Having a website legitimizes you and your brand and can supplement your social platforms,” he said. “Any agency can make beautiful work, but you need to be able to tell the story behind it.”
See example here: Everything to Sell Anything Campaign