Project · Freelance

db5ive

A thirteen-page website for an advisory practice that I built and launched, plus the brand underneath it.

Role
Website & brand
Client
Advisory practice
When
2026

What it is

db5ive is an advisory practice for mid-market CEOs, owners and founders: serious people who are short on time. The site had to feel like it belongs to someone senior, so it reads like an editorial feature rather than a startup landing page.

The website

Thirteen pages, live at db5ive.com. The work section tells seven client stories, each built around the opening someone else missed. I built and launched the site, and set up the hosting, email and deploys.

The db5ive home page.
Home
The db5ive Work page listing client stories.
The work

Under the hood

No website builder and no template: plain HTML and CSS with a small build step, so it's fast, cheap to host and easy to keep tidy.

Lighthouse scores

Desktop: 100 performance, 100 accessibility, 100 best practices, 100 SEO. Mobile: 98, 100, 100, 100. Zero layout shift.

Lightweight by design

  • Plain HTML and CSS, no framework
  • Works fully with JavaScript turned off
  • Respects reduced-motion settings
  • Self-hosted variable fonts with fluid type
HTMLCSSPython

A build step on every deploy

  • Minifies CSS and fingerprints every file so browsers cache it for a year
  • Generates the cache headers on each deploy
  • One shared header and footer synced across 14 files, with a check that catches drift

Images and assets

  • Scripts make every photo in WebP with a JPEG fallback, at 1x and 2x
  • Client logos evened out by visual weight so none shouts
  • The share image and favicons generated, not hand-exported

Hosting and deploys

  • Cloudflare Pages from a private GitHub repo
  • A push goes live in about a minute
  • Contact form through Web3Forms
  • Business email on Google Workspace
CloudflareGitHub

The bar I held it to

Quality of a five-figure agency build: every page checked on phone and desktop, accessible contrast throughout, and nothing on the page that doesn't need to be there.

The brand

One drawing does two jobs: db5, the mark, and db5ive, the full logo. The 5 marks the fifth chapter of the founder's career. I wrote the guidelines that keep it consistent: the mark, the two logos, color, type, voice and what never to do.

The db5ive brand guidelines: the logo, the version, and the construction of the db5 mark.
Brand guidelines

What's next

The practice launches publicly next, and the site and deck are built to start those first conversations.