Aurel Vance: a case study by LAIN

Aurel Vance

Editorial photography

Website design: Home, About, Work

2026

Quiet enough to
hear the picture.

A photographer's website has one job, which is to hold the work still. Aurel Vance's pictures are about restraint: light that organises a room, shadow that defines an edge, a figure left alone in the frame. Anything the page adds competes with that, so the design adds almost nothing.

What it does add is order. Every project carries a title, a series and a year, and a number on the work page, the way a printed index does. Pages are white, a few sections are black, the type is small and in one weight, and the name is set large enough to sign the page.

A crowd in motion with one face held still: the picture behind the home page's dark sequence

Graphite, paper
and the photograph.

The system has almost nothing of its own. Text and dark sections are the same graphite, pages are white, rules are a pale grey, and the only ornament is a small black square set where two grid lines would cross, like the registration marks on a proof. Colour is left to the photographs, and there is none.

Two voices: a quiet grotesk in one weight for everything, a heavier one for the name only

The name as the wordmark, on graphite and on paper, wide enough to be cropped by the page

The small parts: bracketed labels, a caption, an index number, coordinates, one list item lit, and the square on the line

A contact sheet,
read in the dark.

A photographer's portfolio is an archive before it is a layout. So this chapter plays the process through the design's own photographs: a proof sheet developed in the dark, a few frames circled, the rest let go, one framed and printed with its caption.

Move over the sheet to light it, and over the print to look closer.

Every frame in one place, small and in the dark. A contact sheet is how the whole day is seen at once.

A few frames hold. The rest are let go, which is most of the work and the reason what remains looks so sure.

The chosen frame is brought up whole and marked for trimming. Nothing is added and nothing is cut.

One image on paper with a margin and a caption: a title, a series and a year, the way the site hangs every photograph.

Nine frames,
as they hang.

The work pages hang photographs unevenly on the ten columns, each with its title underneath and a series and a year at the foot. These are some of them at their own proportions, uncropped.

White Noise · Chloe · '25

The Rebel · Zara · '25

After Hours · Isabella · '25

Chiaroscuro · Margo · '25

Surface Memory · Maison Orée · '26, on its film rebate

Archive 002 · Aurel Vance Studio · '26

The unspoken dialogue, I

The unspoken dialogue, II

The unspoken dialogue, III

Three pages,
one rule.

Home, About and Work share one structure: a black first screen with the name at its foot, white pages under a ruled header, an index of projects, a dark band for a single sequence, and a footer that closes on the name again, larger than anything else on the page.

A photograph with the title set over it, an overview, a dark sequence and a short list of related projects.

A portrait and the statement, a short approach with the contact line, and one blurred frame run edge to edge under 'Light as structure'.

The studio profile, a list of disciplines with one lit, selected works hung unevenly, a dark series, editorial commissions and a three-picture study.

The index,
one band at a time.

The same few moves everywhere: a heading with a small label beside it, a hairline, pictures hung off the grid with a caption underneath, one dark band. These are the pieces, cut from the pages.

The studio profile: a four-line statement, a ruled introduction and a list of disciplines with one lit

Home, the overview: a title, one tall photograph and a short text with three cities

About: the statement, a portrait, and the practice in two short paragraphs

Selected works, hung unevenly, each with a title and a series

Related projects on the home page, two and two

A visual narrative: one dark band, squares on the grid, a progress line at its foot

Editorial commissions, numbered, on white

The unspoken dialogue: three portraits side by side on graphite

Light as structure, space as narrative: one blurred frame with a line at each corner

The footer, closing on the name across the whole width

Two more covers.

The thumbnails for the shots. The home page's is the cover of this page.

About page

Work page

See it in full.

The shots on Dribbble.

Website - Work Website - Project showcase Website - About