James Holt: a case study by LAIN

James Holt

Art direction

Website design, case study template, book page, social carousel

2026

A portfolio that
reads like a page.

An art director's work is mostly other people's brands, so the portfolio around it has to stay out of the way and still be unmistakable. The brief was three pages: a home page, a case study template and a landing page for his book, all of them feeling printed rather than built.

So the design borrows from the page. Words are set in one grotesk and one ink. A ten column grid is drawn as hairlines on the white, headlines are justified, and the quieter words drop to ash. The only thing allowed to break the order is the portrait, smeared sideways by the same motion that runs through the work.

I make
ideas work.

The home page's first screen, put together as you scroll: the rules first, then the portrait, laid down row by row from the photograph, then the line that introduces him, a word at a time. When it is whole it still answers. Cross the portrait and the rows under the pointer are carried with it, then settle back, the way the photograph already smears at the shoulder.

One ink,
one grid.

Nearly everything is the colour of the ink. A warm black for words and numerals, a pure black for buttons and the one dark panel, ash for the rules and for the small words inside a headline, and white for the page.

The type is a single grotesk in two weights, set tight and a size up from where you expect it. Headlines are justified with the last line left, which opens wide gaps between words, so a sentence reads at two speeds.

The monogram, on paper, black and grain

Display, heading, title, body and label

Three pages,
one sheet.

A home page, a case study and the book. Each runs the same rules down the sheet: a justified headline, a few quiet lines, a picture or a table hung from the hairlines, and a bracketed word where there is something to press.

I'm James Holt and I make ideas work

Website and UX/UI redesign

Unseen Connections

The home page,
row by row.

Under the portrait the page keeps one recipe: a justified headline, a few lines of copy, and a table or a picture hung from the rules. Rows are numbered in light ash, tables run on hairlines, and every button is a word in brackets.

The first screen

What he does

A track record, as a table

Selected work

The book

Contact, and the name

A case study,
on the same sheet.

The project page is a template: the title and the facts first, a wide screen, then the challenge, the system and the result. It is filled here with one of our own projects, so the work is always the darkest thing on the white page.

The opening screen

The system, in four panels

Articles and guides

Built for structured communication

The home page, with the dashboard under it

The pages, laid out in perspective

A book,
on its own page.

The third page launches a book, Unseen Connections. The cover is black cloth with the title in white, and the page around it is the same sheet: the book first, what you will learn, a glimpse of the chapters, and the portrait again, close up.

The cover and its bookmarks

The portrait, close up

The monogram over a grain of his own face

A glimpse into the pages

Eleven slides,
swiped.

The portfolio as an Instagram carousel, drawn for the 4:5 frame. The page builds itself slide by slide: rules first, then the words and the picture, with the pages running on across the swipe. The clips play as they come into view; the stills hold.

Slide 1, the introduction and the portrait

Slide 2, the monogram

Slide 3, the home page and the book page

Slide 4, creative direction

Slide 5, campaign strategy

Slide 6, the case study

Slide 7, the book page

Slide 8, the book

Slide 9, the case study page

Slide 10, the work

Slide 11, get in touch

Three covers,
on black.

For the shots, each page is lifted off the sheet and set on black: the home page beside its lower sections, the case study beside the project it holds, the book beside its pages.

Home page

Case study

The book

See it in full.

The portfolio on Dribbble.