Mara Hollis

Available from Nov

Work

Services

About

Contact

Let’s talk

Mara Hollis

Available from Nov

Work

Services

About

Contact

Let’s talk

Mara Hollis

Available from Nov

Let’s talk

Mara Hollis

Available from Nov

All work

(Case study)

Web

2025

Norvane Labs: a lab site that

reads like a paper.

Norvane Labs publishes research on reliable AI agents. I art-directed and built their new site in Framer, so the work reads as carefully as it was written and the team can publish without a developer.

Client

Norvane Labs

Role

Art direction and Framer build

Timeline

8 weeks, 2025

Services

Website, Framer, Art direction

Visit live site

(01)

Overview

Researchers don’t browse. They skim the abstract, check the figures and decide in ten seconds whether a paper deserves their evening.

Norvane’s old site was a startup landing page with the papers buried two clicks deep. Every launch went out as a PDF link on social media, and almost nobody found the rest of the archive.

We treated the site like a journal. One clear front page, a reading view built for long text and figures, and a publishing flow simple enough that a researcher can post on a Friday night.

more time spent on research pages than on the old site

papers published by the team without a developer since launch

0.9

median load time on a mid-range phone, down from 4.2

0.9

median load time on a mid-range phone, down from 4.2

The page grid, drafted by hand before any type was set.

Long reading sessions in the studio shaped the type scale.

(02)

Approach

Three decisions that shaped it.

The paper is the page

Every research post opens on its abstract, authors and key figure, with the full text one scroll away. No hero banner, no marketing copy in front of the work.

A type scale for reading

A serif for long text, a mono for code and data, and line lengths kept under seventy characters on every screen size, including the figure captions.

Publishing in one sitting

Papers live in the Framer CMS with fields for abstract, figures and citations. A researcher fills in one form and the page, the archive and the feed update together.

Figure layouts for the reading view, tested on real papers.

(03)

Outcome

“The site finally looks like the work we do. People read the papers now instead of just sharing the link.”

Leah Okafor, head of research at Norvane Labs

The new site went live in May 2025 and won a Site of the Day a month later. The team has since added a careers section and a changelog on their own, using the same components.

Design

Mara Hollis

Engineering

Built in Framer

Research

Norvane research team

Copy

Leah Okafor

(Next)

Product

2026

Tessel

Read the case study

(05)

Contact

Have a project in mind?

Tell me what you are building and where it hurts. I reply to every email within two working days.

hello@marahollis.studio

Booking from November 2026. Two project slots left this quarter.

(05)

Contact

Have a project in mind?

Tell me what you are building and where it hurts. I reply to every email within two working days.

hello@marahollis.studio

Booking from November 2026. Two project slots left this quarter.

(05)

Contact

Have a project in mind?

Tell me what you are building and where it hurts. I reply to every email within two working days.

hello@marahollis.studio

Booking from November 2026. Two project slots left this quarter.