design+code
Web design is a loaded term. For some it means choosing fonts and colors. For others it covers everything from UX research to motion. Here is what it means to us, in six propositions.
A lot of design portfolios celebrate Figma frames that have never been built. We avoid that trap. Every design decision has to survive the browser: real fonts, real images, real interactions, real loading times. If a design only looks good as a still image at 100% zoom, it is not a web design. It is a poster.
In practice we test in browser as soon as possible. Real content, never Lorem Ipsum. We pay attention to how typography rasters at small sizes, how images compress, how transitions feel on a slow connection. The portfolio frame is the easy part. The browser is the hard part.
A beautiful site that loads in seven seconds is a failed design. We treat performance as a design constraint, not a technical afterthought. Images compressed in AVIF or WebP. Fonts loaded with sane fallbacks. Animations that respect prefers-reduced-motion. No giant hero videos that drain mobile data plans. Lazy loading anywhere it makes sense.
Performance is also an SEO signal and a GEO signal. Google measures it. LLMs avoid slow sources. Building fast is no longer optional.
When we design a brand site we know it will be edited by the client's team for months or years after we leave. The actual product is not the homepage we hand over. It is the system the team uses to publish.
So we design around the CMS, not in spite of it. Every component is a CMS template before it is a beautiful page. Every editorial space is documented. The team gets trained, or at least a video walkthrough, before launch. A site that looks great but breaks the moment the marketing team adds a new project is a half finished site.
In 2026 anyone can add a parallax effect, a custom cursor, a Lottie animation, a horizontal scroll. The question is not what is possible. It is what is necessary.
What does this animation help the user understand? What does this transition signal about the brand? If the answer is "it looks cool", we remove it. Every effect we keep has a purpose, a hierarchy, a reason to exist.
The sites we admire most (Mast Studio, Pentagram, Bureau Borsche, the better Webflow studios) move less than the average portfolio. They move with intent. That is what we aim for.
Most good web design is solved at the typography level. Typeface, size scale, leading, spacing between sections. Those decisions carry most of the visual weight. Color and imagery come after.
When we start a design phase we begin with a type system. One or two faces. A clear scale (h1 to h6 with consistent ratios). The spacing rules between text blocks. Once the type rhythm is right, the rest of the design becomes easier. Color, photography, illustration all sit on top of that foundation.
This is also the part of a project that ages slowest. Trends in color and imagery move fast. A solid type system designed in 2026 will still look right in 2030. The same cannot be said of the latest gradient blob trend.
We do not pretend to be experts at everything. A serious brand site involves at least four crafts: brand design, copywriting, photography, development. Each takes years of practice to do well. The agencies that claim to handle all of it in house are either bigger than they pretend, or worse at most of it than they admit.
So Della Mattia is built as a network. For each project we bring in the right collaborators: brand designers like Studio Avenir or Bureau Fritiau when the project starts from scratch, photographers when the visual layer needs an upgrade, copywriters when the editorial voice has to carry the site, motion specialists when motion matters. We lead each project. We do the design system and the development. The rest is brought in per brief, credited in full.
This is uncomfortable for clients who want one agency to absorb all the risk. It works for clients who care about who actually does the work. The site is better. The team is leaner. The credit is shared.
If these principles match how you think about your next site, we are easy to reach. bonjour@dellamattia.com.