The Story Engineers

Client: The Story Engineers

Role: Development, consultancy, design advice
Duration: Spring 2026
Outcome: New WordPress site with light redesign

Overview

The Story Engineers make installations, live experiences for events, exhibitions and museums, and help tell stories that move people. They had an out-of-date, and hard to use CMS that was making it impossible to manage the site. I was brought in to do a straight rebuild of their site from Craft CMS to WordPress.

They had also just done a brand overhaul, changing their name from Sysco Productions and refining their positioning. The original plan was to retain the old site design and change the logo, but their new brand guidelines and positioning was such a significant step up that it seemed silly not to refresh the site as we built.

The Story Engineers had a concept called ‘the grid’ which is something easily relatable for anyone working in design and the web. It represents the behind the scenes nature of the work, connecting to the story itself and ties into their core tenant of ‘enabling big ideas’. Their logo is taken from the polygons that make up this grid and was a slightly clunky asset on their old site.

Working with their brand guidelines I added some subtle interactivity with this grid asset as a rollover on hero images. We also stripped away a lot of the border and bounding boxes that make everything feel a bit crowded so their site captured more of a sense of the immersiveness they provide in real life.

Finally we made it as easy as possible for them to show off their work. They had a really great body of work to show off, with great photos and videos. I made a new gallery and lightbox system that is super easy to manage, create new showcases and mix up the layout.

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