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funky mode

Casa Cactus

branding + Web design + web development

Custom WordPress theme PhotoShop/ Illustrator/ XD/ PHP /jQuery/ GSAP/ Vanilla JS

Casa Cactus is a guest house in the Algarve that also hosts events and retreats.

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View working prototype

Website launching soon

Ema and Tiago are a multi-skilled, warm, and welcoming couple opening a guest house in Portugal with a difference.
The brief included branding and a logo as well as a website. They wanted a minimalistic but subtly quirky website that will hold information about their rooms plus retreats, events and sustainability opportunities.

The sand and soft pink colours in the palette reflect the stone and tiles used to build the house and for the logo, we went for a cactus flower instead of the typical cactus shape. The typography in the logo is the ode to the fun and playful purpose of the house, while, in contrast, the rest of the typography and website layout feel calm and simplistic.

UX & UI Iteration

This first homepage design comp taught me some lessons about UX, what can seem minimal and simplistic can end up lacking purpose and direction. Not only did the landing zone not give any clear message about what the service is, there were no call to actions and guidance for the user.

The iterated homepage make use of white space for a super modern feel. The use of type hierarchy guides the users eyes through the key points, clearly stating exactly what Casa Cactus offers and each featured service is labelled and linked, clearly showing where the user can begin their journey.

Another big iteration was how we would present all the activities and additional events the house offers. At first, I considered a grid showing everything there was to offer. However, this presented the user with too many options and would have required a lot of extra pages and more navigation for the user to find what they are looking for.

So instead, once an event or activity is available, the client will be able to create the event in the back end of the website, which is then automatically generated as an individual page and added as a highlight to the main list of what's going on (a custom post type). This way, the client can highlight a small list of events/activities they want the user to find information on and book onto quickly.

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Website designed & developed by me @2025