JPL Redesign

Jesse Parris-Lamb — Website Redesign (Unofficial)

I recently moved to Brooklyn and started spending a few hours a day at the library near Prospect Park. On my first walk there I passed this storefront that looked different from the rest — turned out to be Jesse Parris-Lamb, a Brooklyn interior design firm from 2014 who do really cool work. I checked out their site and thought “I can probably do better” (humbly, of course)… so here we are.

I wanted to capture the essence of JPL: a lot of expression, but a lot of restraint. They add tons of character and flair, but it stays familiar and never overdone — tough to nail. The site follows the same principles: charming and familiar at face value, but unique and intentional. Everything has to have a purpose.

The home page gets straight to the point — into the world of Jesse Parris-Lamb the moment you land. It's a nice bit of user guidance too; hard to put into words, but I don't feel overwhelmed here. I have everything I'd want.

The interior gallery was all restraint. Something bold or “experience”-heavy didn't fit the vibe. A few nice touches went a long way — a subtle parallax scroll and some hover life on the thumbnails.

Each space gallery was built off reference images I generated for inspiration. I like how the large, off-center images command attention, yet the write-up to the left has the same pull — a fun use of spacing. The film strip at the bottom is a nice touch too; the page felt incomplete and cheap without it.

The about page is unironically my favorite of the project. I kept trying to turn it into a whole experience and it never felt right. JPL's original about page is simple and plain, but that's why it's good — the rest of the site is the experience for their work; the about page shouldn't compete. I want the story, quickly and all at once.

I pulled from a reference that used full-bleed images and color contrast really well. The other pages were pretty uniform, so this one was fair game for a slight departure. It feels special, but still not overdone.

And here's the original (current) site. It's fine, but it doesn't feel special. To me it didn't reflect the level of work Jesse Parris-Lamb does.