Solyque started with a question: what if photographers could launch a portfolio that feels handcrafted, without touching a single line of code?

I’d been scrolling through endless cookie-cutter templates and kept seeing the same problem.

Beautiful photography was getting buried under clunky layouts. The idea for Solyque was born from wanting a gallery that disappears into the background and lets the work breathe.

From the beginning, the mission was clear: build a Framer template that photographers would actually enjoy using.

Not just a “drop your photos here” site, but a space that feels like walking into a curated exhibition. The goals were:

Keep the design minimal but alive with subtle movement.

Make customization so easy that setup feels more like arranging prints on a wall than wrestling with code.

Handle big, high-resolution images without sacrificing speed.

The first hurdle was locking in a design language that felt modern yet timeless. Too much flair and the photos would be overshadowed; too little and the site risked looking flat. Finding that sweet spot meant a lot of late-night mood-boarding and experimenting with layout grids.

The hero carried the weight of first impressions. Each option told a different story, and narrowing it down to a single opening scene took more iterations than expected.

I explored ways to add character without stealing focus from the photos. This led to the creation of camera ring illustrations to quietly emphasize photography and speed-themed illustrations to capture the fast-paced world of photographers, those quick shoots, fleeting moments, and the energy behind every capture. Both were designed to blend in small, thoughtful details that reward a closer look.

Turning the design into a fully functional Framer template brought its own challenges. I needed clean components and flexible sections that users could customize without breaking the layout. Every interaction had to feel smooth and purposeful.

Finally, making the template look just as sharp on phones and tablets was its own puzzle. High-resolution photography is heavy, and keeping it fast across screen sizes meant endless testing and fine-tuning breakpoints.

After countless tweaks and test builds, Solyque emerged as a calm, gallery-like template that photographers can make their own in minutes.

It’s fast, fully responsive, and built for storytelling, letting every image breathe while giving photographers the flexibility to shape their own visual narrative.

Check it out live: https://solyque.framer.website/