How do you make a
Elijah Ademola
How do you make a website feel like it’s been there for a hundred years?
That was the challenge with Maison Étoile, a ballet house in Paris. Tradition is the product, so the page couldn’t look new.
Here’s what I did:
→ Photography with no colour. Black-and-white images of dancers, windows, and empty studios. Colour dates a page. Monochrome doesn’t.
→ Typography with a long memory. A refined serif in light and italic, with a single gold accent. It looks like a programme from a theatre, not a template.
→ French first. The language sets the tone before anyone reads a word.
→ Room to breathe. Wide margins, short lines, and nothing competing with the images. Old institutions never look crowded.
→ A slow, formal way in. Not “Sign up,” but a request for an audition. The process itself says the place takes this seriously.
The lesson: heritage isn’t something you add to a design. It’s what’s left when you remove everything trendy.
What’s one brand you trust because it has never tried to look modern?
#BuildingInPublic #WebDesign #UXDesign #CreativeDirection #LuxuryBranding
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Posted Oct 20, 2026
How do you make a website feel like it’s been there for a hundred years? That was the challenge with Maison Étoile, a ballet house in Paris. Tradition is the...
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