Microdot

www.microdot.vision

a VFX studio reel built as one giant black canvas where Mux-streamed clips hang in space, tiny 14px labels float at the edges, and a thumbnail filmstrip pinned across the bottom lets you scrub the whole body of work like a video timeline.

Film Production Vfx Post Production Studio niche

Design tokens

background
black
white
off-white
highlight-red
focus-blue
display
__font_1c1708 (obfuscated self-hosted sans)
body
__font_1c1708
mono
none

Do / Don't

Reference it for

  • Portfolio-as-timeline: a pinned bottom thumbnail strip that scrubs the entire body of work, turning a feed into a scannable filmstrip.
  • A pure white-on-black (#0D0D0D / #FFFFFF) canvas where video is the only colour, with one red highlight token (rgba(255,0,0,.2)) for selection.
  • CSS-only motion done well: opacity crossfades (0.15-0.25s ease) for lazy media reveal, no GSAP, no Framer, no smooth-scroll library.
  • Mux + Sanity + Next.js App Router as a reference stack for video-heavy studio sites (adaptive streaming, lazy autoplay, a CMS-driven feed).
  • Extreme typographic restraint: one weight, three sizes, tiny 14px labels as the entire UI chrome.

Do not copy

  • The floating-render hero and the exact corner-label layout are Microdot's signature framing. Borrow the filmstrip and the restraint, not the composition.
  • Autoplaying 35-plus videos is bandwidth-heavy and needs Mux-grade adaptive streaming plus careful lazy loading. Do not naively port it to raw <video> tags.
  • The obfuscated __font_1c1708 is a licensed face shipped by the studio. Substitute a neutral grotesque (Inter, Söhne, Helvetica Now).

Signature moves

portfolio-as-timeline filmstrip

a pinned bottom thumbnail strip scrubs the entire body of work, turning a feed into a scannable video-timeline filmstrip.

white-on-black video-only canvas + tiny chrome

a pure white-on-black (#0D0D0D / #FFFFFF) canvas where video is the only colour, with extreme type restraint (one weight, three sizes, tiny 14px labels as the entire UI chrome).

CSS-only crossfade media reveal

CSS-only motion: opacity crossfades (0.15-0.25s ease) for lazy media reveal, with no GSAP, Framer or smooth-scroll library, on a Mux + Sanity + Next.js stack.