Ceramic Artist & Object Maker · Demo website

Mara Vey

A maker's portfolio has two jobs: let the work feel physical on a flat screen, then make the next step easy for collectors, galleries, and collaborators. This demo uses generous editorial layouts, clay-and-cobalt color, and close-up photography to give each object weight. Collection filters and full project stories reward browsing; clear availability, stockists, and a guided commission form turn that attention into an inquiry with enough detail to answer well.

Mara Vey is a fictional creative professional we invented for this demonstration — not a client. The website is real and fully working; the artist, the work, and the story are illustrative.

mara-vey.demo · northheaddigital.com

This is a live website — scroll and click around right here, or open it full-screen. Try it on your phone, too.

The problem this design solves

Commission requests with nothing in them to answer

What a maker deals with when inquiries arrive carrying no dimensions, budget, or timing — and what a guided brief changes.

The starting point

New work appeared as isolated social posts, while gallery, hospitality, and private commission requests arrived without dimensions, budget, timing, or any shared understanding of the artist's process.

What the design changes

Visitors can move through the work by collection, understand the material story behind each piece, find current stockists, and send a commission brief with the practical details already attached.

Design notes

Giving a tactile medium weight on a flat screen

Ceramics are a physical medium being shown on glass, so the design compensates deliberately: close-up photography that catches glaze and thumbprint, a clay-and-cobalt palette, and layouts generous enough to give each object weight instead of stacking pieces like a catalog.

The commission form is the real machinery. An open contact box produces “I love your work, are you taking commissions?” — which starts three rounds of email before anyone can say yes or no. This one asks for project type, budget range, timing, and a brief, so the first reply can be an actual answer. Object stories carry materials, year, and availability; stockists and collection-drop dates serve the people who want to buy rather than commission.

What this build includes

What turns interest into a usable brief

  • Filterable collection grid for vessels, tableware, and installations
  • Accessible object-story dialogs with materials, year, and availability
  • Artist profile and three-step studio process built around the work
  • Stockist, collection-drop, and commission availability information
  • Structured commission form capturing project type, budget, timing, and brief
Make it yours

Your practice, presented like this

Your collections, your process, your stockists, your commission terms. The same structure serves any maker balancing ready-to-buy work against custom projects — furniture, jewelry, textiles — where an inquiry needs qualifying before it is worth a conversation.

Portfolio sites with a guided commission or inquiry system like this one typically fall under our Silver package.

Picture your work here?

Tell us about your work, the people you want to reach, and what you want them to do next. We will help shape a portfolio that feels like yours.

Prefer to talk it through first? Call or text Riley at (360) 214‑6549, or book a free 15-minute call.

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