Sean and I made this site for Big Circus Media back in the dark times of 2020.
TV’s favourite farmer, Matt Baker, came into our studio before lockdown kicked in, looking for a website for his new production company venture. He loved the idea of animating the little farm details, the retro tv/film vibes and overall ‘countryside’ texture to the website as a whole.
It’s always good fun chopping things up and making them move around on screen – Revolution Slider was used to handle the little animations, which are a combination of GIFS and PNG files with basic loops and fades applied. Getting them all to behave nicely took quite a bit of time – we’d most likely use GSAP for something like this now (as of 2025) but rev slider shouldn’t be overlooked, it’s super easy to pickup and learn, and you can burn just as much time in GSAP nudging things around, so I don’t wanna throw too much shade on good old Rev Slider.
The branding’s pretty cool too – playing off that classic circus concept. The big top! The Big Show! The One Show? I don’t actually know, never seen it myself. But I do know that Matt’s a jolly nice chap, and the project was a generally positive experience.
Over time, the in house staff have embraced the use of WP Bakery (which we were still using in 2020) so things have visually slid into new and unsanctioned territory. But it still looks pretty great overall – the animated banner on the homepage is still the impressive focal point.
