The brief, the decisions and the delivery
An editorial website for books made to be kept
The challenge
Booked Images creates bespoke, hand-bound photo books from its studio in Barkham, near Wokingham in Berkshire. Its work ranges from wedding albums and family histories to automotive commissions and brand presentation books. The website needed to communicate the care behind those objects while helping very different customers find the right starting point. Nicole and Angie wanted a distinctive design, a more straightforward client journey and a WordPress site they could keep up to date. Our brief covered the visual design and the custom ACF development behind it.
Let the first interaction introduce the product
The homepage opens with a book that moves, unfolds and settles as the visitor scrolls. Its final position leaves the main headline and enquiry routes in view. We built the opening into the page's reading sequence, with a Skip control and reduced-motion fallback. A lighter image sequence adapts the interaction for mobile. The portfolio captures the finished open-book state so visitors can see the product and the design together.
Build an editorial setting around the photography
We used expressive serif typography, generous image layouts and a restrained palette drawn from the brand. Close-ups of bindings, materials and finished books sit alongside the people and process behind them. The collection, craft, About and Journal pages share a visual language, while each has a layout suited to its content. The design gives a prospective customer time to inspect the work before starting a conversation.
Give each type of commission its own journey
Eight collection routes organise the offer, from Weddings and Family & Life Stories to Business & Brand and Bespoke / Limited Edition. Collection galleries, the materials explorer and the making process answer different questions before an enquiry. The contact journey lets visitors describe their book and its purpose. We built the site around personal commissions rather than a conventional online checkout, reflecting how Booked Images actually works with its clients.
Make the custom design practical to run
A bespoke WordPress theme and ACF Flexible Content give the team reusable, editable layouts for copy, photographs, collections and Journal articles. Responsive images, local fonts, deferred scripts and controlled video loading support the media-rich design. Technical SEO work included page titles, descriptions, canonical URLs, structured data, sitemap checks and migration redirects. We also worked with the client's existing marketing partner on the launch, keeping the website connected to their wider digital activity.
What we delivered
- Editorial website design and a custom WordPress theme built with ACF
- Scroll-driven book-opening homepage with mobile and reduced-motion treatments
- Eight collection journeys with galleries and personal enquiry routes
- Craft and materials presentation, team pages and an editable Journal
- Responsive image delivery, font and script optimisation, and launch performance testing
- Technical SEO foundations, migration redirects and search-readiness checks
The outcome
The new website gives Booked Images a presentation that reflects the quality of its books and the personal nature of each commission. Customers can explore collections, examine the craft and materials, and start an informed conversation with the team. In the recorded pre-launch homepage tests, median Lighthouse performance was 100 on desktop and 98 on mobile. Angie and Nicole's review highlights the aesthetics, clearer client journey, communication and care that went into the project. Ongoing SEO is the next phase of the relationship.
Recorded pre-launch lab results
- Desktop performance
- 100/100
- Mobile performance
- 98/100
- Desktop LCP
- 0.65 s
- Mobile LCP
- 2.31 s
Performance figures are medians from three cold Lighthouse homepage runs per device on protected staging, recorded on 13 October 2026. They describe that pre-launch version, not a current live score or field Core Web Vitals. Staging was intentionally noindex; no adjusted SEO score is presented as a public Google result. A comparable before-and-after baseline has not been established here, and no ranking, traffic or sales increase is claimed. Screenshots show the public website captured on 17 October 2026.
What the client said
Matt and his team did the most wonderful job in creating our new website for Booked Images
From the get go Matt was super helpful, supportive and a great communicator with meticulous attention to detail. He brought a whole heap of creative ideas and suggestions to our many discussions and nothing was too much trouble for him.
As an attentive listener he really got to grips with our brand styling and the niche nature of our business and client base. He made sure that these elements were clearly reflected in the completed site.
Matt and his team adopted much more of a holistic approach when supporting us, in that he didn’t just build the site, but, took into account all aspects of our digital marketing plan. He was also very agreeable in the sense that he happily engaged with our other partners to ensure everybody was fully onboard in advance of the launch.
Nicole and I thoroughly enjoyed working with Matt and we would highly recommend him. We love the aesthetics and more straightforward client journey of our new website and look forward to continuing our working relationship with Matt and his team.
Angie & Nicole
Booked Images
Angie Jones
Booked Images
What this means for your project
For a business selling bespoke work, the website needs to explain both the finished product and the process of commissioning it. Start with real examples, give each audience a useful route, and make the next conversation easy to begin. Plan the editing structure and image delivery alongside the design so the team can continue adding work after launch.
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