How we approached a heritage project without making a museum.
Adelphic Union Lodge No. 14 was chartered in 1865. The challenge wasn't building a website. It was building a website that didn't betray 160 years of institutional gravity with a stock template and a "Get Involved" button.
The first thing we did was read. The lodge provided boxes of archival material — printed programs, officer records, photographs from the early 20th century. We spent two weeks in that material before touching a design tool.
What we found: the lodge has always known how to present itself. The printed programs from the 1920s are formally beautiful. They use rules, hierarchy, and weight in ways that feel contemporary. We didn't design against that history. We followed it.
The result is a site that feels like it belongs to an institution, not a startup. Heavy serif type. Real photography. A history section that reads like a proper archive, not a timeline widget.
The lesson we take from this project: listen to the institution. The aesthetic is usually already there. Your job is to translate it to the medium, not replace it.