How it works
Describe your business
Say what you do, who it is for and how it should feel. Add a site you like if you have one.
Briks designs it
It plans each page for your business, chooses the type and colours, and writes every section from a blank page.
Checked before it publishes
The colours of the words are checked against their grounds in the code, then on the live page at desktop and phone.
What designing from a blank page means
When you describe your business, Briks starts with an empty page. The kit every site is built on carries working parts, such as menus, forms and motion, and holds no designed sections or example words. Every section of your site, its header and its footer are written for your business.
Before anything is built, it plans the site the way a designer would: what kind of business it is, how wide the pages should be, how the header, the first screen and the footer are put together, and the one typographic idea that gives the site its character. The plan is written for your business, so a bakery and a law firm start from different places.
You can also start from a template, which keeps the structure of a site built with Briks and rewrites every page for your business. This page is about sites started from your own description.
Type chosen for your trade
Type carries much of a site's character, so Briks chooses it for each business. It pairs a display face with a point of view for the headings with a quieter face for the text, from 46 display faces and 36 text faces, and sets the two apart in width or weight.
A few faces turn up on so many machine-made pages that they make a site look like the rest. Briks leaves 12 of them out of every new site, Inter, Space Grotesk, Fraunces and Syne among them. When a site you like uses one, yours gets a face of the same voice instead.
Your own fonts come first. Name a face in your brand settings, or in your own words such as "use Inter, it is our brand font", and it is kept, even one Briks would leave out.
A say in the look, when you want one
Most people let Briks design straight through and change what they want afterwards. If you would rather choose first, switch on Choose the look in the new-project steps. Before the build you see three looks, Nordic and clean, Warm and Bold, each with its colours, its two faces and its corners set with your own words, and the whole site is built in the one you pick.
Two more switches sit beside it: choose the first screen of the home page from four plain grey wireframes with your words in place, or approve the site's words before anything is built. All three are off by default.
Or show Briks a site you like. It reads that site's layout, spacing, type and motion and designs yours in that spirit, with your own words and pictures. A site you show already decides the look, so the look and hero stops are not offered with one.
Checked before it publishes
A design only works if people can read it. Every build is checked for colour contrast in its code before it publishes, to WCAG AA: 4.5 to 1 for body text and 3 to 1 for large text. After the first publish, Briks looks at the live page at desktop and phone width and repairs words that are hard to read.
A fuller check is one switch away. Once the first version is published, Briks looks at it at four screen sizes and repairs what renders broken, such as parts that overlap. It is off by default, because it takes a few minutes more and some credits.
Designed for your business in practice
Three example businesses, and how each would use it. Where a site is pictured, it is a sample Briks built for an example business, not a customer.
- 01Bakery
A baker who wants to choose the look first
A baker describes her sourdough, her weekend pre-orders and the Saturday queue, and switches on Choose the look. Because her bakery works with its hands, the Warm look comes out in cream and olive with Young Serif for the headings. She compares it with Nordic and clean and Bold, picks Warm, and the whole site is built in it.
- 02Law firm
A law firm that leaves the design to Briks
Two partners write about separation, children and fixed-fee first meetings, and nothing about design. Briks plans the site for a family law firm from a blank page, chooses its type and colours for the trade, and checks the contrast of every word before it publishes. Afterwards the partners ask for what they want changed in plain words.
- 03Yoga studio
A yoga studio that shows a site it likes
The owner admires a ceramicist's calm, airy site. She adds its address, and Briks reads its layout, spacing, type and motion and designs the studio's site in that spirit, with her classes, her timetable and her own words. Where the ceramicist's site uses a face Briks leaves out, hers gets one of the same voice.
What you get
- Designed from a blank page for each business you describe
- 46 display faces and 36 text faces to choose from
- 12 overused fonts left out, unless you name one
- Contrast checked to WCAG AA before it publishes
Good to know
- Choose the look, the hero from four wireframes and approving the words are switches in the new-project steps, off by default.
- The look and hero stops are not offered when you build from a site you like, or for dashboards.