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Teardowns

Long-form site breakdowns

Two a week. Each one opens the inspector on a recently-shipped site and writes up what the team actually did: typography, motion, IA, the patterns worth lifting.

issueweekly

Issue 002: Notion Calendar's marketing site, the slow death of the logo cloud, and Stripe Atlas in four steps

Week two. Five launches worth opening the inspector on, a note on what's happening to 'trusted by' logo clouds, and the start of an evergreen teardown series on sites everyone copies and most people get wrong.
teardownapple

Apple's product pages: long-scroll storytelling and why imitators fail

Apple's product pages are the most copied long-scroll narrative pattern on the web. Every B2C hardware launch since the iPhone 4 has shipped some version of it. Almost none of them land. A teardown of what's actually happening on apple.com/iphone, why the long-scroll only works when the product can carry it, and which moves are stealable versus which require Apple's resources, control, and audience patience to pull off.
teardownnotion

Notion's marketing illustration: what it earns and what it costs

Notion's marketing site is the most consistent illustration-heavy product site on the web. The Roman-Muradov-style line characters, the friendly tone copy, and the soft warm palette are the most distinctive moves in B2B SaaS. They're also under pressure as the brand grows up. A teardown of what the illustration system earns Notion, what it costs them, and which moves are worth lifting if you're building a category-defining brand.
teardownvercel

Vercel: the gradient-monospace-grid formula and when it falls apart

Vercel's marketing site is the second-most-copied dev-tool site on the web, after Stripe. Its signature look (chromatic gradients, monospace numerics, a fine grid backdrop, oversized geometric sans) has become shorthand for 'serious infra company.' A teardown of what works on vercel.com, why the formula sometimes falls flat even on Vercel itself, and which moves are stealable versus which read as cosplay.
teardownlinear

Linear's landing-page playbook (and why everyone copies it badly)

Linear popularized the dark-mode-with-glow aesthetic that now dominates every developer-tool site on the web. Most imitations get the obvious moves and miss the structural ones. A teardown of what's actually doing the work on linear.app, the grid backdrop trick, the type stack, and why a dark gradient is not a substitute for editorial discipline.
teardownstripe

Stripe's marketing site: the engineered-but-doesn't-shout look

Stripe's marketing site is the most copied site on the modern web, and almost every imitation gets the same things wrong. A teardown of what actually makes stripe.com feel premium: the type spec, the gradient, the microcopy discipline, and the animation choices, and which of those moves are stealable versus which require Stripe-scale resources to land.
issueweekly

Issue 001: demo-as-hero is here, type-as-illustration goes mainstream, and one really good invoicing flow

The first WebTrends weekly. Six launches worth opening the inspector on, one craft pattern of the week (type-as-illustration), one link roundup, and a note on what we're tracking for next Sunday.
craft-patterntypography

Type-as-illustration: when the headline does the visual work

A craft pattern that's quietly become 2026's default for product marketing pages. Using oversized, weight-varied type as the primary visual element instead of illustration or screenshots. Here's why it works and the four moves that separate the good implementations from the bad ones.
teardownvercel

Vercel Ship 2026's microsite is the cleanest event page in years

Vercel's conference site does three things most event microsites botch: schedule density, speaker hierarchy, and venue context. Here's the breakdown, and one thing they got wrong.
teardownlinear

Linear's 'The Method' page is a clinic in stacked storytelling

Linear's marketing team rebuilt their pitch around a single long-scroll page. The trick isn't the animation: it's how the layout teaches you their product without any product screenshots.
framerwebflow

Framer in 2026: is it finally ready to replace Webflow?

Framer has been the 'almost there' tool for three years. In 2026, the gap has closed enough on CMS and team features that the answer is genuinely 'it depends.' A detailed breakdown of where Framer wins, where it still falls short, and who it's actually right for.
bento-gridtrends

The bento grid moment: why everything looked like a product screenshot grid

The Apple-derived bento grid was the dominant SaaS marketing aesthetic from 2023-2025. An analysis of why it took over, what it was actually doing well, and why teams are abandoning it right now.