Most websites get redesigned every few years. The one I designed for Holbrook Travel launched in October 2015 and stayed live until 2025.

A maze of trips and pages

Holbrook has run educational and nature trips since 1974, from birding in Costa Rica to safaris in Tanzania. Their old site was a maze: trip details, itineraries, and pricing were scattered across pages, and there was no way to browse by what travelers cared about. Holbrook also ran two very different kinds of travel: trips anyone could join, and custom trips schools and groups planned with them.

Before and after: the homepage.

Design lead from the first wireframe

I led the design from the start, from the first wireframes to every page. We worked out the information architecture in-house, with Holbrook's COO, CMO, and marketing manager, and our technology partner, Traktek Partners, built the site.

Building blocks, not pages

Holbrook had dozens of destinations and hundreds of trips, changing every season. One-off pages would have fallen apart fast. So I designed a set of building blocks (heroes, gallery cards, trip lists, two-column layouts) that combined into five templates covering about 100 pages. Holbrook's team could add a new country, interest, or trip without a designer. That's a big part of why it lasted.

Five templates for the whole site.

Wireframe to final: a trip page.

Asked back ten years later

When Holbrook was finally ready for something new, they brought me back to consult on the redesign. That meant more than any launch.

Design and wireframes by me; information architecture with Holbrook's COO, CMO, and marketing manager; development by Traktek Partners.

See the full case study →

Before the website: Designing for the whole trip →