Aboriginal Veterans Autochtones
An organization advocating for Indigenous veterans across Canada needed a digital presence that matched the weight of their mission. We rebuilt it from the ground up — faster, more refined, and built to last.
A Solid Foundation, Ready for Its Next Chapter
AVA's website had served the organization well — but a few years in, the design had begun to feel dated and the WordPress page builder was putting a ceiling on performance. The opportunity was clear: a full rebuild that would match AVA's evolving needs and do proper justice to their mission.
A Design That Had Grown Dated
The original site served AVA well, but the web moves fast. What felt contemporary a few years earlier had started to show its age against the visual standards visitors expect today. The organization deserved something that matched the gravity of their mission in 2026.
Performance Left on the Table
WordPress with a page builder carries inherent overhead — layers of abstraction that have real costs on load time. Moving to a modern framework meant unlocking a tier of performance simply not achievable on the old stack.
Visual Identity Ready for Elevation
There was an opportunity to lean further into what AVA actually represents. The new design speaks to that: landscape imagery rooted in the land, a palette of deep ink, red, and gold, and typography that brings the presence the organization deserves.
Navigation Worth a Closer Look
The existing nav was functional and familiar. The rebuild opened the door to something more considered — a floating, adaptive navigation that becomes part of the hero itself, then condenses gracefully as visitors move through the site.
Same Mission. A Much Stronger Presence.
Rebuilt From Scratch. Every Page.
This wasn't a refresh — it was a complete ground-up rebuild. New framework, new design system, new architecture. Every decision made with AVA's mission and identity at the centre.
A Floating Navigation That Earns Its Place
The navigation starts full-width and transparent over the full-bleed hero — not a bar sitting over it, but part of it. As the user scrolls, it condenses into a frosted-glass pill: max-width 880px, backdrop-blur, a swapped logo, adjusted link colours, and refined dropdown styling. Six hundred milliseconds, cubic-bezier easing. It's the kind of detail visitors feel without being able to name.
- Transparent over hero, frosted-glass pill on scroll
- Logo swaps between light and dark versions
- Dropdown menus adapt styling to scroll context
- Full-screen overlay menu on mobile
Design Rooted in the Organization's Identity
Every visual decision was intentional. The palette — deep ink, AVA red, and gold — carries the weight of what the organization represents. Playfair Display brings an authoritative presence to headings. And the imagery throughout is grounded in the land: sweeping Canadian landscapes woven through every section, from the full-bleed hero to the panoramic footer transition.
Headless WordPress: Familiar for Editors, Fast for Visitors
The content team publishes President's Corner posts and news updates exactly the way they always have — in WordPress. What changed is what visitors see: a Nuxt-powered frontend that fetches content through a clean REST API layer, renders it server-side, and delivers it at a fraction of the old load time.
Performance From the Ground Up
Starting fresh on Nuxt 4 removed the page builder overhead entirely. Optimized images served in modern formats, server-side rendering, clean component architecture — every decision compounds. The result is load times over 200% faster than the previous site, across every device.
See It All Together
Modern Stack. Built to Last.
Purpose-built components on a framework that prioritizes performance by default.
10 Weeks to a Complete Rebuild
Discovery, design, full Nuxt build, WordPress API integration, content migration, and launch — all delivered and live.
Discovery & Direction
Review of the existing site, content audit, design direction, and identifying what to evolve and why
Design System & Architecture
Visual design, colour system, typography, headless WordPress API structure, and component planning
Build & Integration
Full Nuxt build, WordPress REST API integration, floating navigation, animations, forms, and all page templates
Review & Launch
Client review rounds, content migration, cross-device testing, performance verification, and go-live
A Site That Honours the Mission
Eliminating the page builder overhead and rebuilding in Nuxt cut load times dramatically — on every device, every connection.
Built on the latest version of Nuxt — server-side rendering, modern tooling, and a component architecture built to scale.
Editors publish in WordPress. Visitors get a Nuxt frontend — completely decoupled, dramatically faster, and fully SEO-ready.
Built to today's standard — a visual identity that honours AVA's mission and a technical foundation ready for years ahead.
Have an Organization with a Story Worth Telling?
We love working with mission-driven organizations. Let's build a presence that does yours justice.