Contra - A professional network for the jobs and skills of the futureHello there. I'm the founder of Studio 113 and a Squarespace Circle Partner. Excited to share thi...
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Hello there. I'm the founder of Studio 113 and a Squarespace Circle Partner. Excited to share this project below with you all! Project: CultureCon Collective, cultureconcollective.com, featuring the CultureCon 2026 Festival page Link: https://cultureconcollective.com/culturecon-2026-festival Social Links: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brittanimillington_squarespacechallenge-squarespace-squarespacedesigner-ugcPost-7485407738118938624-jq5q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABXRiXcBdsT6CWGlhhHGqypNSby3I9OQZ2M https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbEPT1Gh1qT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Backend walkthrough video: https://www.loom.com/share/72739542eb2849cd97d33c49daab6cbe Featured Project Description: CultureCon is a two-day festival bringing thousands of creative entrepreneurs, creators, and cultural leaders to Brooklyn each October. The 2026 festival page is built around "Museum of Us": the idea that the community's stories deserve to be framed like art in a gallery.
Design direction came from CultureCon's creative team with Exhibit B Agency. Studio 113 served as Squarespace design consultant and built the experience native-first in Squarespace using this year's Finish Layer tools. Every gallery interaction on this page, the layering, the animations, the hover moments, is a native Squarespace feature. Work that once demanded plugins and custom CSS is now one panel away, which made this the fastest build of this scale the my studio has delivered, and kept custom code reserved for what it should be: client-specific integrations, not design.
How Finish Layer was used:
Layers: A museum needs depth, and the Layers panel is what made depth possible without code. A star loops in a slow rotation above text, background imagery rotates behind the ticket tiers, and curated animations to give delight, each element placed exactly above or behind its neighbors through layer ordering. Layers also power the responsive build: desktop and mobile intentionally show different images and hide or reveal different elements, so the composition is art-directed at every breakpoint instead of just shrinking down.
Block Animations + Transforms: The "What to Expect" cards tilt into a skewed angle on hover, giving the grid dimension and inviting touch. Buttons use the growth effect, with the scale amount tuned per element so the primary "Buy Tickets" action gets the biggest moment. Getting that tuning right took real iteration: each hover had to say "click here" without shouting, so scale values were tested and adjusted element by element until the page felt attention-grabbing but never overdone. Ambient loops (the rotating star, the drifting "there's a place for you" element) keep sections alive without stealing attention.
Font Uploads: A bold condensed custom display face carries headlines, navigation, and buttons, so the page speaks in CultureCon's voice rather than a platform default.
Stacks: "OUR 2026 THEME: MUSEUM OF US" section built as Stacks for desktop, holding alignment and styling as a unit across various screen size.
User experience & functionality:
The page gives visitors more than one door in: buy a ticket, apply to participate, join the Collective, book the hotel block, or simply explore. Every interactive moment reinforces the museum concept, so hovering, scrolling, and discovering feels like walking a gallery. You don't just read about the culture, you move through it. Layer-based mobile art direction keep the experience intact on phones, where most of this audience lives.
Process:
The CultureCon site was rebuilt natively in Squarespace this spring, after the sitewide refresh wrapped, the festival page was designed and refined in July with Finish Layer's newest tools, launching July 8 ahead of the ticket push. Design direction arrived as organized Figma files from CultureCon's creative team and Exhibit B Agency; Studio 113 translated the vision into native Squarespace sections and worked a section-by-section punch list with the client team. A backend walkthrough video accompanies this entry.
The result is a site built on Squarespace's foundation, with Finish Layer's native tools carrying the entire design experience: the layering, the motion, the hover moments, the museum. Light custom code and SquareKicker tools helped execute client-specific touches and I handled other client-side needs like ticketing, Mailchimp, and Zapier integrations. The page is live today, actively selling tickets for the October festival, and every visitor who hovers, scrolls, and wanders through it is walking a gallery built with the platform's own tools.
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holy smokes this is wild!
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