Truenorth
Adding the right accents
Services
UX, web design, development, content architecture, animations and motion design
About the project
The challenge Hugsmiðjan faced was to create a digital experience that reflects Truenorth’s unique identity. The website needed to convey the company’s impressive professionalism as well as the flexibility required to serve demanding clients in the film industry.
Truenorth is one of Europe’s leading production service companies for film, advertising, and television. The company has helped put Iceland on the global film industry map—where Icelandic nature often transforms into a breathtaking filming location.
The website has been featured on Siteinspire and Awwwards, platforms that showcase only outstanding digital design—an acknowledgment that we succeeded in communicating the magic of filmmaking through a different medium.
Discovery with design thinking
Approach
As a design project, Truenorth’s new website was especially exciting. Visuals showcasing the dramatic landscapes of the seven countries where Truenorth operates play a major role, and it’s remarkable how many high-profile productions the company has collaborated with. This stunning photography and video content is given center stage on the site, while the surrounding design respectfully stays in the background.
Truenorth already had a distinctive identity for its promotional materials. We adapted this for web and digital media, adding animated elements that enhance the visuals without distracting from the imagery. The site’s structure and navigation were redesigned to better communicate the company’s core focus areas and to help users quickly gain insight into the breadth of Truenorth’s services and projects.
Content
Highlighting Iconic Projects
Truenorth’s biggest projects are given their own dedicated showcase pages, featuring trailers, behind-the-scenes photography, and promotional materials. By bringing visual content to the forefront and keeping text to a minimum, the uniqueness of each project is conveyed in an exciting and memorable way.
This also allows Truenorth to highlight their role in each production—for example, by spotlighting key scenes or sharing snapshots from unforgettable shots.
Beautiful assets deserve complementary motion design
The Truenorth website was simultaneously easy and pretty complicated. It was easy because the client was great—responsive, positive, and always ready to help us finish this project. It was complex because the beautiful assets we were working with deserved complementary motion design, which is never straightforward to pull off in a way that both visually adds to the experience and preserves the site's accessibility and usability. I think we got that balance about right.
James Dickie, front-end developer
Awwwards
Site Inspire
Marketing Website of the Year
Website of the Year - medium-sized businesses