Tome theme · Architects, designers and photographers
Studio. Built to win work by showing it.
For studios whose portfolio is the sales argument: architects, design-build firms, interior designers, landscape studios, photographers and small agencies. The photograph is the largest thing on every page, and the words sit beside it or below it, never on top. Behind the pictures is a proper archive: every project filed under your own job number, with its facts, its credits and a case study told in numbered plates. The site asks for nothing until a visitor has seen enough work to want to talk, and then it asks once.
- Palettes
- 4, each light and dark
- Price
- In the Craft Library and every paid plan, or $199 once with its packs
- Demo
- Ridgeboard Architects, a fictional architecture and design-build practice, whose inquiry form nobody answers


Palettes
Four palettes. Pick the one that suits your work.
Every palette as the whole home page, side by side. Scroll inside any of them to see it top to bottom. Under the colors, the sections stay the same.




Captured from the demo at 1440px. Ridgeboard Architects, a fictional architecture and design-build practice.
In every palette the accent only marks things: the dot on a new project, the rule on the filter you've chosen, the square on the current plate, the underline under the current page and the focus ring. Each of those also changes shape or weight, so nothing depends on color, and the accent never colors text. The palette also sets how the Plates view frames your work: a wall-colored mat in Gallery, edge to edge in Concrete, straight on black in Black Box, and a thin keyline like a drawing border in Blueprint. Gallery and Concrete each have a derived dark mode, Black Box and Blueprint each have a derived light page, and every page has one band in the opposite tone, the inquiry at the end.
The sections
What each section does for the work.
These are crops from the demo practice, in Gallery. Each section answers something a client wants to know before they get in touch: what have you built, have you done anything like mine, how do you work, and how do we start?

One project leads the page
The home page opens on one project you've flagged as featured: its photograph runs off the right edge of the screen, and beside it, on the page color, sit its job number, its title, two sentences, the plate count with the photographer's credit, and "View project". Under both runs one line of facts in ruled cells (project number, client, place, year, scope, lead, collaborators, photographer and status). Flag a different project and the hero changes, with no page to edit. The photograph settles once from a slight zoom as the page opens; with reduced motion turned on, it doesn't move.

Every project, filed by job number
The work index is your archive as real data. Each row leads with your own job number, then the title and place, the type, status and year, and a small photograph at the end of the row. Numbers never change, so an archived project leaves a gap instead of a renumbering. Chips filter by type with real counts ("Residential 10"), a count line says how many are showing, and the address bar carries the filter, so a filtered view can be shared and "Back to the index" returns to it. The same records switch to a Plates view, a grid of pictures, and the site remembers which view a visitor chose. On a phone the filters open as a full-height sheet with a "Show 9 projects" button. Without JavaScript the index still lists every project and the filters still work, by reloading the page.

A case study, told in plates
Every picture in a case study is a numbered plate ("Plate 04, 05 of 14"), with its caption and photographer's credit beside it on a wide screen and under it on a phone, never on the picture. The story runs in three chapters that never mix: the finished work, your drawings and the work in progress on site, with three short passages at a reading width between the plates. Drawings are set as linework in the palette's own ink, and on a phone each one has an "Open the drawing" button that opens it full screen, so a visitor can pan to read a dimension. The case study ends on your credits, in the order you enter them, and on one next project. In Chrome and Edge, opening a project from any listing grows the picture you clicked into the case study's lead image; with reduced motion turned on, or in other browsers, the page simply opens.

The same five steps on every job
Your process is a numbered list of phases (in the demo "Brief, Concept, Drawings, Build, Handover"), and each phase has a work-in-progress photograph with its caption and credit. On a wide screen the list stays in view while the photographs scroll past it, and the phase whose photograph is in the middle of the screen is marked; that marking still happens with reduced motion turned on, because it's information. On a phone each photograph carries its phase's name and sentence instead.

Start a project
Every page ends on the one band in the opposite tone: your principal's portrait and a short note beside a structured inquiry (name, email, project type, where the site is, a rough budget, timing and the brief in their own words), with your response time stated in the copy and under the button. On a case study, the inquiry can arrive with that project's type already chosen.
That's what a visitor sees. Here's what you get to build it.
What's in the package, and what it's built from.
Navbar 1 with your studio's name set in type at the left (no logo file needed), the links centered and "Start a project" always at the right, with the current page underlined. It sits on the page above the work, takes a surface and a hairline once you scroll, hides as you scroll down and comes back as you scroll up. On a phone it's your name and a "Menu" button that opens a numbered menu in plain type. Footer 7 sits on its own tinted ground with your name, what you do, a line that can point to the inquiry instead of a street address, three columns of links, and the small print with the photo credits, and no call-to-action band above it.
Gallery and Concrete, light pages with a derived dark mode, and Black Box and Blueprint, designed dark pages with a derived light page.
Archivo, one variable typeface set at three widths, so width does the work that size usually does: wide for headings and job numbers, normal for anything a visitor reads, and condensed for facts, captions, credits and counts. Facts are in sentence case, never small spaced capitals, and every number is set in even-width figures so a column of years or job numbers lines up. The largest words on any page are at heading size; the hero is a photograph. Archivo ships inside the package under the SIL Open Font License, so the site makes no third-party font request.
The featured-project hero and its facts line, the work index in both views, selected work, the studio statement with facts counted from your projects, services with a representative project each, the process, people with their portraits, clients set as names, the case study's header, plates, drawings, client voice, credits and next project, and the closing inquiry band.
Ledger and Plates views of the same records, switched in place and remembered on the visitor's next visit, with no jump while the page loads. Chips by type, plus status, a year range and place in the full index, each with a count that respects the other filters, and a count line ("20 projects, 9 shown.") that updates as they change. The address bar carries the filter, and a reload or a shared link opens the same filtered list. The filters hide when you have fewer than eight projects, and the home page's index hides below three. A project you mark as new carries a dot until the date you set. Without JavaScript the chips submit as a form and the full index renders the filtered list.
One page per project, built from its record: a breadcrumb, the lead photograph across the full width (with its own phone crop), the title, a one-line summary, the facts in ruled cells and the description. Then the plates in three chapters (finished work, drawings and work in progress), each plate numbered across the whole project, in a column, an offset plate, a pair, a trio or the full width, with three short named passages between them. The third passage can carry checkable figures, such as area, build time and budget held, and hides them when a project has none. Drawings are SVG linework that takes the palette's ink, opened full screen from a button on phones. Below come one client quote, the credits and exactly one next project, which stays inside the visitor's filter.
Each project's facts sit in ruled cells in a fixed order (project number, client or "Private client", place, year, scope, lead, collaborators, photographer, status), two columns on a phone. Credits are structured: every photograph carries its photographer and source, and the credits band lists them in the order you enter them. The statement's facts (years practicing, projects completed, places worked) are counted from your records, and a fact with no data behind it doesn't render.
Name, email, the project type (from your own list of types, with "Not sure yet"), where the site is, a rough budget, timing and the brief, with your response time stated in the copy and under the button. It sends the inquiry to your inbox in Tome. With Tome Forms, part of the CRM & Marketing plan ($400 a year), an inquiry sent from a case study arrives with that project's type already chosen; without it, the same form runs on Payload's Form Builder and the visitor picks the type.
The hero photograph settles once from a slight zoom, plates and portraits rise and fade in once as they arrive (a photograph waits until it has loaded), and the process list marks the phase in view. In Chrome and Edge, a project's picture grows into its case study's lead image as the page opens. With reduced motion turned on, nothing settles, rises or grows, and the process list still marks its phase.
Five, from the Portfolio Blocks pack, which is free with any theme: Work Index, Project Hero, Title Block, Plate Sequence and Service Rows. They read your projects from one archive kept in Tome Portfolio, so the hero, the index, selected work, the services and every case study always agree. They need Portfolio Blocks 0.1.0 and @wabbit/tome-portfolio 0.1.0 or later; both are free.
What it's built from
A theme owns no blocks of its own. It restyles blocks from the Tome packs below.
| On the page | Block | Pack | With the theme |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hero, work index, selected work, next project | Work Index | Portfolio Blocks | Free |
| Case study header | Project Hero | Portfolio Blocks | Free |
| Facts line, studio statement, credits | Title Block | Portfolio Blocks | Free |
| Finished work, drawings, from the site | Plate Sequence | Portfolio Blocks | Free |
| Services | Service Rows | Portfolio Blocks | Free |
| Client voice | Testimonial | Marketing Starter | Free |
| Process | Phase Ledger (pinned variant) | Dossier Blocks | Included |
| Clients | Record Roster | Dossier Blocks | Included |
| People, closing inquiry band | Team Roster, Contact (estimate variant) | Agency Essentials | Included |
Buying the theme includes Agency Essentials and Dossier Blocks, and the Portfolio Blocks pack comes free with it, so you can build the pages exactly the way the demo has them. The theme also restyles any other Tome block you add. *(the Roster note, with Studio's packs)*
Two ways in
Install it yourself, or have us set it up.
Developers and agencies install it themselves; business owners usually want it set up. It's the same theme either way.
Install it yourself · developers and agencies
The Craft Library
Every theme and every paid block pack, Studio included, for $250 a year.
Or just Studio, $199 once
It includes the packs the demo is built from (Agency Essentials, Dossier Blocks and the Portfolio Blocks pack). Each purchase covers one production site, and staging and development copies are unlimited. The purchase adds it to your account, and you install it from our registry with the token on your account page.
# after purchase: registry token from your account page
pnpm add @wabbit/tome-theme-studio
// app/layout.tsx
import '@wabbit/tome-ui/tokens.css'
import '@wabbit/tome-theme-studio/styles.css'
import '@wabbit/tome-theme-studio/fonts.css'
<!-- pick the palette on the html element -->
<html data-tome-theme="studio" data-tome-palette="blackbox">Set it up for me · business owners
We set it up
We install Studio on a new site and replace Ridgeboard Architects with your practice: your projects entered once as records, each with its job number, type, status, year, place, lead and credits; your photographs, each lead with a focal point and a phone crop; the case studies you want told in full; and your process, people and clients. The demo's illustrative people, example quotes and sample figures come out, and your own go in as you give them to us, with every photographer credited. You get a written proposal with the price before any work starts, and it says which way the inquiry form is set up.
Runs on
What it runs on.
- Payload
- 3.67 or later
- Next.js and React
- Next.js 15 or later, React 19
- @wabbit/tome-ui
- 0.21.0 or later, below 1.0
- @wabbit/tome-core
- 1.25.0 or later, below 2.0. Only needed to list the theme in the admin's theme switcher.
- Package
- @wabbit/tome-theme-studio 0.1.0, a preview release
- Fonts
- Self-hosted from the package, SIL Open Font License
- License
- One production site per purchase. Staging and development copies are unlimited.
Tell us about your business.
Pick a palette and tell us what the business does. We'll reply with questions or a written proposal for setting up Studio with your details.
Installing it yourself?
The Craft Library includes Studio, every other theme and every paid pack for $250 a year. Or buy Studio alone for $199 once, with the packs it needs, for one production site.
Set up Studio for my business


