Indigo

Indigo makes films, and the website was built to prove it: full-bleed video, front and centre. The problem was arithmetic. A 14MB hero file is a tax on every visitor who isn't on fibre — and most of them aren't. On a phone on a train, the first impression was a grey rectangle and a spinner, and no amount of grading fixes a first impression that never loads.

The film was the product and the problem at the same time. The brief: keep the drama, lose the weight. Every byte had to earn its place, and the page had to feel like cinema even before the first frame loaded.

The hero streams adaptively, with lazy posters and a player tuned for mobile networks — the video arrives at the quality the connection can afford, never more. The layout is film-first: stills carry the story until a visitor chooses to play, so the page works even when the network doesn't.

Behind it, a headless CMS lets the team swap trailers without a developer, and every media box is reserved before load so nothing jumps. Performance is a design decision here, not a cleanup pass.

Performance stopped competing with the film. Largest paint fell from 6.2 seconds to 1.1, layout shifts went to zero, and video starts rose 54% — visitors didn't stop watching, they started. On a slow connection the page now shows a poster, not a stalled player; on a fast one it plays almost immediately.

When the page stops punishing the connection, the work gets seen on the devices people actually own. The film is still the hero; now it arrives like one.