📍 United States

Chrysalis Biomedical Advisors is a US-based strategy consulting firm serving startups, established companies, and investors in life sciences, genomics, and molecular diagnostics. After nearly a decade on their old site, they came to us for a full redesign one that matched the sophistication of their work.

The client came in with a clear visual ambition, a 3D animated helix effect on scroll and an existing site on SquareSpace that couldn't deliver it. The first decision was moving to WordPress with Bricks Builder, which gave the client's team a CMS they could manage themselves without touching code.

That introduced the central tension of the build: the site had to carry Three.js 3D elements and scroll-driven animations without becoming slow. Performance wasn't optional for a firm pitching to investors and enterprise clients, a sluggish load would undermine everything the design was trying to say. Optimisation was built into the process from the start, not bolted on at the end.

The third constraint was a content design problem. Chrysalis operates across 23+ biomedical market verticals - genomics, diagnostics, life science tools, and more. All of them needed to be visible at once so visitors could immediately grasp the breadth of the firm's expertise. Cramming 23 items into a standard layout would either bury the information or clutter the page. We solved it with an organised SVG file, a structured hexagonal grid that lays out every vertical in a single scannable graphic without overwhelming the page.

The butterfly stayed, but not as a photograph. I abstracted it into a dotted particle graphic that suggests the form without depicting it literally. It became the visual anchor of the homepage, pairing naturally with the Three.js particle animation that responds as you scroll.

The platform decision came first. Squarespace couldn't support the 3D animation brief, so we moved to WordPress with Bricks Builder, giving the client a CMS their team could manage independently while keeping the front-end fully custom. Performance was a priority throughout: despite the Three.js hero and SVG-heavy pages, the site was optimised to load fast, which mattered for the firm's audience of investors and senior life sciences executives.

The 23+ biomedical market verticals presented a content layout challenge. Listing them linearly would either bury them or pad the page. We built a structured hexagonal SVG grid, each hexagon representing a vertical, so visitors can take in the full breadth of Chrysalis's expertise in a single glance without the page feeling overloaded.

The brief asked visitors to leave understanding what it feels like to work with Chrysalis: collegial, action-oriented, analytical. The design language, considered, precise, never overdesigned, was built to carry that.