Workshop pre-read · Aug 26–27, 2026 · design
Design Direction
Two things this page tracks: what the new site already changed versus the current perrygolf.com, and what isn’t built yet. The whole site is not in a final design state — everything here is subject to change. This is direction and a gap list, not a set of locked decisions. It feeds the protected Day 2, 9:10 design review.
Executive summary
- The clearest change so far: carousels give way to grids of image + vendor, so a page shows its golf and hotel partners at a glance instead of sliding through them.
- We already hold a few strong opinions regardless of the in-flux state: make CTAs more noticeable, give people a reason to fill out the enquiry form, remove carousels, and use higher-quality images where they do commercial work.
- Several legacy capabilities are not rebuilt yet — Trip Finder, Trip Calendar, maps, and custom tours / PYOT are parked or deferred.
Why it matters for the workshop — it is the input to the Day 2, 9:10 design review, which produces the Exhibit E design direction due three business days after the workshop.
The index
What changed, by theme
| Theme | Where | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Carousels → grids | Cruise, tour, destination pages | Image sliders replaced with a scannable grid of image + vendor so the actual golf and hotel partners are visible at a glance (removing carousels is a stated direction — see below). |
| Partner-sourced cards | Featured courses & hotels, featured trips | Card image and blurb are pulled from the partner / course / trip document — never hand-typed per page, so a venue looks the same everywhere and can't drift. |
| Curated OR automatic | All grid sections | Each grid can be hand-picked and drag-ordered, or auto-generated from a destination with filtering (golf / lodging, tours / cruises). Editors choose per placement. |
| One hero, three shapes | Every template | A single hero component with centered / split / immersive variants; on mobile the text stacks above the image so the image never hides the headline. |
| Page-builder sections | Pages, tours, cruises | Beyond the fixed template blocks, editors compose a page from a library of section types (feature, cards, CTA band, FAQ, enquiry form, etc.). |
The per-template sections below expand each of these as legacy → new → why.
Where we already have conviction
Strong opinions (even while everything else is in flux)
- CTAs should be more noticeable: Primary calls to action need to stand out more than they do today — clearer hierarchy, more visual weight, harder to scroll past.
- Give people a reason to enquire: The enquiry form should be incentivised, not just present — a reason to fill it out (what they get, why now) rather than a bare contact box.
- Remove carousels: Carousels still exist in the build; the direction is to phase them out in favour of grids and static, purposeful imagery.
- Higher-quality images, as needed: Where imagery is doing commercial work (heroes, partner cards), it should be high quality — upgraded as we go rather than reused low-res legacy assets.
Template
Cruise page (golf-cruise)
| Legacy site | New build | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier image carousel / slider at the top of the page. | Featured courses & hotels grid — image + vendor name for each golf and hotel partner. | The partners are the product. A grid shows all of them at once instead of hiding them behind a slider. |
| Related trips buried in body copy or a separate list. | Featured trips grid — hero image, title, date range, nights + rounds. | Turns cross-sell into a scannable, image-led row that reuses trip data directly. |
Template
Small-group tour page (escorted-tour)
| Legacy site | New build | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Course image carousel on the small-group / escorted tour page. | Featured courses & hotels grid — golf and hotel partners as image + vendor cards. | Same reasoning as the cruise page: show the venues, don't slide through them. |
| Partner photos duplicated per page. | Card image pulled from the partner / course document; galleries pool a venue's photos once. | One source of truth per venue — no per-page copy-paste to maintain. |
Template
Destination page
| Legacy site | New build | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Mixed content with a carousel and inconsistent partner presentation. | Featured courses grid plus a partner directory grouped by region — no carousel. | A destination page's job is to list what's there; a directory does that better than a slider. |
| Destination imagery inconsistent / missing. | Destination cards currently use a branded initial-tile fallback (imagery migration deferred). | Structure ships first; images are a follow-on (see the not-built list) — ties to the 'higher-quality images' opinion. |
Cross-template
Site-wide changes
| Legacy site | New build | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Separate, bespoke hero markup per section. | One hero component with centered / split / immersive variants; image stacks below text on mobile. | Consistent, responsive, and editor-controlled instead of hand-built each time. |
| Hand-authored lists of trips / partners per page. | Grid sections with a curated-or-automatic toggle and 2–4 column options. | Editors pick and order, or let a destination populate the grid — without touching layout. |
| Many independent carousel implementations. | A single carousel component with token-constrained options (retained, but being phased out). | Where a carousel remains, it's one consistent component — but the direction is to remove them. |
The gap list
Not built yet
- Trip Finder — faceted search / filter / sort of tripsParked
- Trip Calendar — sortable table view of tripsParked
- Interactive maps (destinations / courses)Parked
- Custom tours / PYOT (quick-quote sample itineraries)Deferred
- Front-end itinerary builder (customise a trip)Deferred
- Destination card imagery (photo migration)Deferred
- Enquiry form → email backend (Postmark / email-api)Not wired
- Testimonials & reviews componentDecision pending
Parked = decided-later, no active work. Deferred = planned, out of the current build. Not wired = built in the UI but not connected to a backend. Decision pending = a Day 1 CMS decision.
Workshop pre-read (in progress). See the legacy-vs-new views side by side in compare, and where reviews belong in the content strategy. Back to the workshop agenda.