Case studies

WALOO

We rebuilt our own marketing site—Astro for speed, a solid design system with light/dark themes, and templates that stay fast without a page builder.

We rebuilt our own marketing site. The previous WALOO.co was a capable agency site—but it leaned on a template-led stack with illustration-heavy pages, no theme system, and mobile vitals that left performance on the table. This case walks the rebuild: design-first templates, Astro as the delivery layer, and lab results that match the promise we sell clients.

Before

What we started from

The legacy site read as a full-range design agency brochure: bold headlines, stock isometric art, and rigid page layouts. Content did not change shape often—home, about, work grid, project detail—but the stack still paid the cost of a heavier theme approach.

PageSpeed lab (Jul 2026) put mobile performance at 73 with LCP 5.4s and FCP 3.0s. Desktop already looked healthy at 97 / LCP 1.1s—so the gap to close was mobile experience and a modern design system, not “everything is broken.”

Legacy WALOO homepage — agency template with isometric illustration hero — Before — template-led marketing site with illustration-heavy hero, single theme, limited typography system.

When templates stay stable and copy is the variable—not arbitrary page-builder compositions—you do not need Elementor, Divi, or a plug-in construction set. You need a durable design system, clear section patterns, and a frontend that ships only what the page needs.

We proposed a full rebuild of waloo.co around three pillars: Design (expressive type, light/dark themes, purposeful motion), Astro as the framework for a fast static front, and Performance budgets that survive every release—the same bar we set for client work.

The thesis for prospects is simple: marketing sites with disciplined templates win on Core Web Vitals when the stack stops treating every page like a unique canvas.

Content & IA

Mapped stable templates—home, services, work, case studies, about, contact—and killed page-builder sprawl in favor of reusable sections.
Design system

Tokens, typography (Gilroy / Averta), light/dark themes, and UI modules that read as one composition—not a dashboard of cards.
Astro front end

Built the public site in Astro with a static HTML content bridge—minimal client JS, critical CSS inline, deferred non-critical assets. Content is modeled as a headless WordPress-ready flow so editorial ownership stays familiar when a CMS sits behind the same templates.
Performance budgets

Poster-first hero LCP, font subsetting, mobile-deferred video, and image srcsets checked against Lighthouse on every meaningful change.
Launch & verify

Cut over on Cloudflare Pages, re-ran PageSpeed on mobile and desktop, and kept dogfooding the same playbook we recommend to clients.

Design

Brand system & UI

Gilroy for headings, Averta for body, and WALOO red for hierarchy—plus light and dark atmospheres from the same tokens.

Brand
Performance-first WordPress

Services mapped to outcomes

Speed that survives launch

Case studies

We design and build fast WordPress sites — custom themes, headless architecture, and performance optimization.

Headings

Gilroy · 700–900

Body

Averta · 400

Typography
- #D72F47 WALOO red
- #B41329 Primary dark
- #12141A Ink
- #555D6D Muted
- #E9E9ED Canvas
- #171A21 Dark bg
Color palette

Live UI

The new marketing site

Home, Case studies, and About—toggle light and dark on the same templates.

Lab PageSpeed after relaunch: 99 performance on mobile (from 73) and 100 on desktop (from 97). Mobile LCP moved from 5.4s to 2.3s; desktop LCP from 1.1s to 0.6s.

Accessibility, best practices, and SEO stayed in the green. The headline win is mobile—where the previous LCP made the site feel heavy—without inventing fake desktop drama where the old stack already scored well.

99

Lighthouse mobile

From 73 on the legacy marketing site (PageSpeed lab).

100

Lighthouse desktop

From 97 — finishing the last points with a cleaner front.

2.3s

Mobile LCP

Was 5.4s on the previous homepage lab run.