Explore Performance
Explore Performance had a world record, two Brandon Hall awards and 40,000+ leaders trained (and a website that said none of it). As their long-term web partner, we redesigned the site around the proof.
A redesign of the WordPress platform we've built and hosted for Explore Performance since their COVID-era pivot, putting expeditions, awards and client results at the centre of the buyer journey.
What we were solving
Explore Performance runs leadership development programmes built on real expeditions. Their facilitators row oceans and climb mountains, then turn that into simulations for teams at UBS, AWS, Sanofi, Trafigura and Google. We moved them off a Squarespace site during their COVID pivot, built the WordPress platform they run today, and host it. The pages had not changed since 2021.
The business had. It set a world record on the Tasman Sea in 2025, won Brandon Hall Gold and Silver awards, and passed 40,000 leaders trained across 25 countries. The site said none of this, with 72 client logos sitting as unidentified numerical IDs and an icon grid where the expedition story should have been.
This was a redesign, not a rebrand: same palette, fonts and WordPress foundation, with the four pages of the buyer journey rebuilt inside a 30-hour timeblock. A corporate buyer had to see a global business with measurable results, not a guy with a mountaineering hobby.
How we tackled it
Codify the design system before designing anything
The existing site had a palette and type in its CSS but no system: ad-hoc spacing, one button style, no rules for text on photography. We extracted the live CSS into tokens (brand blue, coral, navy, the type scale) and added only what the rebuild needed: a stat headline scale up to 96px, photo overlay rules for legibility on expedition imagery, spacing on an eight-point grid, and a dark feature block for the big moments. Anything missing from the document was a decision still to be made. We flagged it rather than inventing it.
Build components once, swap content many times
Thirty hours does not survive hand-building seven near-identical sections, so the build was componentised first: five outcome cards with alternating photo direction, seven expedition cards with trailer lightboxes (World Record badge on the Tasman card), five flagship case study cards with a challenge, what we did and the numbers layout, and a hotspot map for the three global regions. Fixed-structure cards became reusable components. Cards needing structural variation, such as variable stat counts, became flexible content blocks.
Restraint as a design decision
No scroll animations, no parallax, no decorative gradients. Hover states and photography carry the site. An HTML reference file validated every token and component in the browser before any page-builder work began. The 72 anonymous logos were audited with the client and regrouped into seven named sectors on the Clients page.
What we delivered
Explore Performance now has a site that leads with what the business is: seven expeditions, one world record, two Brandon Hall awards, and named results for clients like UBS (20,000 leaders aligned across 5 continents in 8 months). Every repeated section is a component, so the team can update content without touching layout. The Phase 2 additions already scoped, dedicated case study sub-pages and a challenge-led navigation restructure, slot into the same system rather than needing a redesign.
What we learned
A refresh deserves a design system as much as a new build does. Extracting the existing CSS into tokens took a few hours. Every wireframe, component and line of new CSS then traced back to a documented decision, which kept a four-page rebuild inside 30 hours.
The client did not need new messaging. The world record, awards and client numbers existed. The work was structural, making that evidence impossible to miss. When a business has outgrown its website, the gap is usually presentation, not substance.
Impact & outcomes
redesign timeblock covering the full buyer journey
monthly search impressions after relaunch, about 1,400 to 2,900
