What's changed.
Notable updates since launch - new portfolio projects, design changes, performance work. Not every commit, just the ones worth calling out.
The project wheel turns the way your finger does
A session recording showed someone on a phone swiping the home page's wheel sideways, like a carousel, and nothing happening. Swiping right to left now brings the next project forward, and left to right goes back. Up and down were the wrong way round as well: the front card falls down the roller towards you, but it took a swipe up to send it. Now you pull it down. Scrolling up and the up arrow bring the next project too, and Space still moves on.
Try the wheelChangelog dates fit on a phone
On phones and tablets the dates on this page ran into the headings beside them. They now sit above each entry on a phone and have more room on a tablet.
Hosting is £10 a month
The managed services page listed three bundles from £19 to £89 that nobody was on. It now shows what clients pay: £10 a month for hosting, small updates and support, with no minimum term. A domain name is £2.50 a month more, and Microsoft 365 business email is a £50 setup plus a licence for each person.
See hostingAccessibility: 100 on every page
The automated checks only looked at five pages, so I ran Lighthouse over all 21. /capabilities scored 86: the map pins had no names for a screen reader and sat on top of each other, two date fields had no labels, and the small grey text was too faint on the darker panels. Four case studies had faint labels on their selected options. All fixed, every page now scores 100, and the checks cover more of the site.
See capabilitiesA page for Sheffield, and titles that say what each page is
Search engines sent six visitors here in three months, and the titles were part of why: "Pricing", "About", comparison pages named after me. Every page is now titled for what someone would search for, and there is a page for businesses looking for a web designer in Sheffield, with the three Yorkshire clients on it.
See the Sheffield pageCase studies checked against the live sites
The client sites had moved on since their case studies were written, so I read each one against its site's code and corrected what no longer held. Castleford's catalogue comes from HireHop's hourly feed, not a live lookup. V Clarke Books is edited in Sveltia CMS. Fairways' rating is 4.8, not 5.
Browse the portfolioA pause button for the home page's video loops
The loop on the front card started by itself and nothing on the page could stop it. A pause button now sits at the end of the jump marks. It freezes the loop on the frame it has reached, and the choice is remembered on your next visit.
Lighter fonts that no longer move the page
Every page was fetching 578 KiB of web fonts. Cut down to the characters and weights the site uses, that is 239 KiB. On a slow connection most pages also jumped when the fonts arrived: with fonts held back 3 seconds, 16 of the 19 public pages failed Google's layout shift threshold. All 19 pass now. Body text is set in Geist Sans, as it was always meant to be.
See the colophonThe home page is a wheel of projects
The portfolio is now the home page: an endless 3D wheel of project screenshots on one fixed screen. When the wheel rests on a project, a short video loop of the site plays on the front card. Phones get phone-shaped cards showing each site's mobile layout, with the caption on a pane of glass. With reduced motion switched on, or in a window too small for the wheel, it is a plain scrolling list.
Give it a spinSecurity review and a weekly vulnerability scan
Ran a file-by-file security review of the site and fixed what it found, then brought Next.js and the sign-in library up to their patched releases. A scanner now checks every dependency against the OSV vulnerability database each week.
Plan enquiries that remember the plan
The plan buttons on the pricing and managed services pages used to drop you on the general contact form with no idea which plan you had picked. They now open a short form that carries the plan with it and lets you tick the add-ons you want. The enquiry forms also filter spam without a CAPTCHA.
See pricingRedesign
Every page rebuilt on one editorial system: Bricolage Grotesque headlines, Fraunces italics, paper grain, drop caps. Light mode is now the default, with dark a toggle away. /capabilities replaces the old features page with working demos in place of screenshots, and the contact form sends through Resend and tells you when something has gone wrong.
See capabilitiesA chat assistant that knows the studio
The chat bubble in the corner answers questions about pricing, process and past work from a written knowledge base, and says so when it doesn't know. If you'd rather talk to me, it takes your details and emails me the conversation.
Shopify and Webflow comparisons added
Two more decision-stage comparison pages: when Shopify or Webflow is the right call, and when a custom Next.js build wins. Same side-by-side format as the existing comparisons - no hit pieces, just where each tool fits.
Browse comparisonsAI-search-friendly summary at /llms.txt
Added a Markdown summary of the studio at hallwd.uk/llms.txt so ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews have a clean source to cite when someone asks them about freelance Next.js designers in the UK. Spec at llmstxt.org.
Read itComparisons against WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace
Three new pages walking through where each incumbent platform actually wins, where it doesn't, and what a custom Next.js build offers in return. Built for the small-business owner already shortlisting tools, not for me.
See the comparisonsWhatsApp alternative on the contact page
Some people hate forms. Added a WhatsApp message button alongside the contact form so visitors can send a quick note without filling anything in.
Try itFloating 'Start a project' on long pages
On longer pages a small pill appears bottom-right once you've scrolled past the first viewport. Dismissible for 24 hours, hidden once you're near the inline CTA at the bottom of the page. Quietly there when you want it.
Accessibility polish — tokens, contrast, and a silent CSS bug
Reviewed every visitor-facing page against WCAG AA contrast. New --text-brand token (lighter indigo) for body copy on dark backgrounds, primary indigo darkened slightly so white-on-button passes contrast on light theme. Caught and fixed a CSS-cascade bug that was making the WhatsApp button's black text silently render white. Lighthouse accessibility now passes 95+ on every audited route.
Changelog + colophon + signature 404
This page now exists. Added /colophon documenting the stack and how the site is built, a lost-in-space 404, and a subtle 'last updated' indicator in the footer.
See the colophon10MB of image bloat, gone
Portfolio screenshots converted from PNG to WebP (2.5MB -> 152kb average) and the about photo from PNG to JPEG (3.5MB -> 172kb). Homepage mobile Lighthouse went from 41 to 89 in one pass. Desktop averages 99 across every page.
Light theme
Warm off-white palette to complement the dark default. Flash-free bootstrap via an inline script that reads localStorage before first paint. Toggle lives in the nav.
Editorial hero + portfolio case studies
Homepage hero rewritten in mixed Fraunces italic + Geist sans. Every portfolio project gets a full case study page at /portfolio/[id] with problem / approach / outcome sections and JSON-LD CreativeWork.
Browse the portfolioGecko Enduro Tours added to the portfolio
Guided enduro motorcycle tour operator in the French Pyrenees. Typography-led Next.js rebuild of a dated WordPress/Elementor site, with three image treatments to get more out of the existing low-resolution photography.
Read the case studyFairways Service Station added to the portfolio
Greenfield Next.js site for a family-run garage in Ackworth, trading since the 1960s with no prior website. Mobile-first four-page brochure with a Google-style reviews carousel and JSON-LD local-business SEO.
Read the case studyCastleford Hire Centre added to the portfolio
Full-stack Next.js tool hire platform with live HireHop integration: real-time stock, date-specific availability, custom pricing engine, and a staff dashboard behind Microsoft Azure AD.
Read the case studySelf-hosted Umami analytics
Replaced the broken Vercel Analytics integration with a self-hosted Umami instance. Privacy-friendly, cookieless, no visitor tracking. Event tracking wired on every CTA.
Bram Racing and V Clarke Books added to the portfolio
First two portfolio entries. Bram Racing is a WordPress-to-Next.js migration for a Yorkshire vehicle tuning specialist. V Clarke Books is a typography-led author platform with Decap CMS for in-browser editing.
Site launched
hallwd.uk goes live on Vercel. Next.js 16, React 19, Tailwind v4. Built to be fast, accessible, and owned.
Want to see what's coming next? Tell me what would help your business.