Optiek
Hoet
A Wix template became a tactile atelier.
What we were looking at.
Optiek Hoet is an optician in Ledeberg, Ghent, with something most opticians don't have: an in-house lens lab. They cut and fit their own lenses and hand-pick their frames — the whole business is built on craft and considered choice. That's a story worth telling well.
The site wasn't telling it. It was a generic Wix template — clean enough, working fine, but indistinguishable from any other small retailer's page. Nothing on it hinted at the atelier out back or the care in the frames on the shelf. The template flattened a tactile, specialist business into something forgettable.
The rebuild replaces that template with an editorial, tactile design system built around the two things that make the place special: the in-house workshop and the hand-picked frames. Service pages carry real value rather than filler, so a visitor understands not just what's sold, but why it's worth coming in for.
The homepage, both ways.
Drag the line. Left is the real site as it stood; right is the rebuilt homepage, freshly captured. Same business — a different first impression.
Every page we rebuilt.
Not just the homepage. Each panel below is a full page — hover a frame to let it scroll, or open the full capture. This is where a redesign is really judged.
The atelier, up front
The homepage leads with the thing that sets Optiek Hoet apart — the in-house lens lab and the craft behind the frames — in a tactile, editorial layout that no longer looks like a template anyone could buy. The specialist story is the first thing a visitor meets.
Hand-picked, shown that way
The frames page treats the selection as curated, not catalogued. The editorial system gives each range space and context, so the care that goes into choosing the frames is legible on the page — the difference between a shelf and an atelier.
A real service page, not filler
Sport eyewear gets a genuine, value-driven service page rather than a thin category stub — explaining what the offer actually is and who it's for. It's the kind of interior page where template sites usually give up, and where this rebuild keeps the standard.
The decisions behind it.
The whole point was to make the site feel like the shop: tactile, specialist, and clearly made by people who cut their own lenses.
Retired the generic Wix look
The interchangeable template gave way to a bespoke editorial system that actually belongs to this optician and no one else.
Built the system around the atelier
The in-house lens lab — the real differentiator — became the organising idea, not a line buried on an about page.
Treated frames as curation
Hand-picked frames are presented with the space and context of a considered selection, not a flat product grid.
Made service pages carry weight
Interior pages like sport eyewear were rebuilt as real, value-driven pages rather than the thin stubs templates tend to leave behind.
Currently accepting one project
Have a site that
needs this too?
If your business runs on craft that a template can't show — an in-house process, a hand-picked selection, work you're genuinely proud of — this is the rebuild that makes the site feel like the room you actually walk into.
Start a project ↗