Custom websites

Custom Website Design and Development

Some organisations outgrow templates quickly. Your site has to take bookings, sell something unusual, serve members behind a login, explain complex programs to several audiences, or talk to the software your team already runs on. A theme with a new logo was never going to do that well.

The Design Space is a team of five in Ballina NSW with more than 10 years of custom builds behind us and clients right across Australia. We design every page in Figma, build on WordPress with Elementor, and connect the systems that make the site actually useful to the people running it.

01.

Designed in Figma First

You review real layouts for desktop and mobile before a line of the site is built. Lucy’s Project was designed this way, then built in WordPress with a colour code that organises its content and a quick exit button for visitors who need to leave the site fast.

02.

Bookings and Integrations

Scholten Group takes meeting bookings through Calendly, Wild Byron Sea Safari sells tours through Redzi, and Haven Gallery links its events calendar to an external ticketing system. We connect the platforms your team already depends on rather than forcing new ones.

03.

Members and Education

Northern Rivers NSW has a members area where businesses create their own directory listings and download a branding pack. IIAP Global, an international education institute, needed an information architecture that presents programs and pathways without overwhelming practitioners or institutions.

04.

Unusual E-commerce

Shops that sell more than boxed products. Scholten Group sells services with PDF documents attached to each product through a custom field, while Lucy’s Project runs a merchandise store automated with a dropshipping company, plus donations and premium member content.

05.

Interactive Experiences

Aurora Suspended Fires has a 3D slider that rotates each fireplace through 360 degrees and a mobile 3D model buyers can place in their own room with the phone camera. Field Directional Drilling uses custom video backgrounds to show its equipment and scale.

06.

How We Quote

Custom projects are quoted on scope after a discovery call. We learn what the site must do, who will use it and what it connects to, then send a written proposal covering design, build, integrations and launch, so the figure reflects your project rather than a package.

Custom builds from our portfolio

2025

iiap Global

Northern Rivers Website Design

2020

Northern Rivers NSW

Website

December 2022

Aurora Suspended Fires

Handcrafted Fireplace in Ballina

September 2024

Scholten Group

Construction website

July 2022

Lucy’s Project

Lismore Web Design

2025

Haven Gallery

Byron Bay Web Design

2025

Field Directional Drilling

Ballina Web Design

June 2022

Wild Byron Sea Safari

Byron Bay Web Design

October 2023

Koala Tea

Alstonville Web Design

Custom website questions answered

It’s quoted on scope after a discovery call. Two custom sites can differ several times over in effort depending on the number of page templates, integrations, logins and how much content needs structuring. Once we understand the job, you get a fixed written proposal so you can compare it properly.

When the website has to do a job, not just look tidy. Member logins, bookings tied to real availability, products with attached documents, multi-audience content or anything that saves staff admin all push past what an off-the-shelf theme handles cleanly. If a template would genuinely serve you better, we’ll tell you.

Usually, yes. We’ve integrated Calendly, Redzi, external ticketing, dropshipping and membership tools, and the Northern Rivers NSW site uses several cross-platform integrations to automate admin. Tell us which platforms you run and we’ll confirm how each one connects before you commit.

Because you get bespoke design and features without being locked into a developer. WordPress handles custom post types, member areas and custom plugins, and Elementor gives your team a visual editor for everyday changes. You own the finished site and can host it anywhere.

Figma suits this well, because everyone reviews the same designs before development starts and changes are cheap at that stage. We recommend one person who gathers feedback and makes the final call. Large multi-stakeholder builds such as Northern Rivers NSW are the kind of work we enjoy.

Yes, regularly. Our studio is in Ballina, but discovery, design reviews and training all run well over video call, and we work with clients across Australia remotely. IIAP Global, an education provider operating internationally, is a good example of the reach a site can be built for.

Yes. Our designers and photographers are in-house, so branding, graphics, photos and page content can be produced alongside the build instead of being chased from separate suppliers. That keeps a custom site consistent from the first sketch to launch.

Your team gets training, a written guide and 30 days of support. After that, care plans cover updates, backups and security monitoring, and we stay available for new features as the organisation grows, the way we still support the team behind Northern Rivers NSW.

Get in touch

Planning something bigger than a template?

Tell us what the site has to do, who uses it and which systems it needs to talk to. We’ll book a discovery call and come back with a scoped proposal.