Manuscripts, Machines, and Models

Notes on launching our new website

· Saints

We just released our new website. Even though a website is never finished.

 

The timing was perfect, right before the ACE Awards here in Edmonton, Alberta. From idea to launch took us about two weeks.

 

The concept came from something we keep coming back to: true craft and beauty are timeless. Tastes change. The craft stays the same.

 

So we started looking backward. Way back. The Book of Kells came up early. It's the Irish national treasure, where monks spent years bent over vellum, ruling lines by hand, mixing pigments, getting one illuminated page exactly right. Mistakes weren't an option. Tools were simple. The result is still breathtaking 1,200 years later.

 

Then came Gutenberg's printing press. Distribution cracked open. More people learned to read. New typefaces appeared. A whole industry was born from one machine.

 

Fast forward to the 90s. I still remember our first Windows 95 computer. Then the internet showed up, and I remember giving a class presentation on e-commerce. My friends picked the topic, and I had no real idea what it was yet.

 

And now here we are, where AI is just part of how the day works.

 

Every one of those eras left a fingerprint on the new site:

 

  • A rotating scriptorium of case studies
  • ASCII art tucked into the corners
  • Respira, a blackletter typeface, set in manuscript-style layouts
  • Lines, dots, and paper textures
  • An AI chat as our intake form
  • And a handful more easter eggs we'll let you find

 

Same craft, different tools. Let's get to work.