About this concept
An independent redesign of greatermyrtlebeachcollaborative.com, built as a design study. It is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with the Greater Myrtle Beach Collaborative or any organization it names.
What it is for
The brief was to make the Collaborative’s site feel current while staying right for the people who use it: members, business owners, volunteers, partners, elected officials and the press. So the facts stay exactly as published, and the work is in structure, type and motion.
The memorable thing is one idea taken from the Collaborative’s own logo: a sun over five bands of sea. The launch announcement names five parts of the organization, so the home page draws each as a band and lets scrolling bring them into line. Everything else is kept quiet so that idea can land.
Under the hood: a living horizon drawn on canvas that swells toward your cursor, a hero that sinks into a window as you scroll, a scroll-scrubbed film that takes one AI-generated beach from golden hour to blue hour under the Collaborative’s own mission and vision, page-to-page view transitions, scroll-driven animation, instant prerendering of the next page, a keyboard search (press / or ⌘K), self-hosted type, and an interactive map built from Census boundaries. Each one falls back gracefully in browsers that don’t support it, and all motion stops for people who ask their device to reduce motion.
The imagery
Twenty-two still images, one background video and one scroll-driven film, all generated with AI image and video models for this study. They depict no real place, event or person, and none should be read as a photograph of the Grand Strand, of a program or of anyone named on this site. The only real photographs on the site are the news photos, which are the articles’ own and are labelled “Photo from the official article”.
sunrise over a calm Atlantic beach, sea oats and a sand fence in the foreground
an overhead view of a shoreline in five horizontal bands, from deep water to dune grassUsed for: Regional Alignment
a long timber fishing pier running out to sea in golden late-afternoon lightUsed for: Creating Connections
a wide resort beach at sunrise with a row of mid-rise oceanfront towersUsed for: Economic Growth Engine
a small-town main street of brick storefronts with colorful awnings and palmettosUsed for: Chamber Ambassador Program
an empty boardroom with a long oak table and morning light through tall windowsUsed for: Leadership Grand Strand
a community forum seen from the back of a hall, one person standing to ask a questionUsed for: Collaborate2031, Community Conversations
a golf green at dawn under a live oak draped in Spanish moss, mist on the fairwayUsed for: OneFlight Myrtle Beach Classic
an outdoor oyster roast at dusk beside a salt marsh, under strings of warm lightsUsed for: Shuckin’ The Strand Oyster Roast
volunteers with mesh bags and litter grabbers on a beach in morning lightUsed for: Keep Myrtle Beach Beautiful
tables of wrapped holiday gifts and new bicycles in a warm community hallUsed for: Substitutes For Santa
young professionals talking on a rooftop terrace above the ocean at golden hourUsed for: Grand Strand Young Professionals
a ballroom full of round tables facing a warmly lit stage at a women’s conferenceUsed for: Ignite Women’s Conference
students in safety glasses working with a robotic arm in a training labUsed for: Leadership & Development
an airport gate at sunrise with an unmarked white jet beyond the glass
a still blackwater river at dawn lined with cypress trees, two kayaks on a dock
an oceanfront boardwalk at dusk lit by lanterns, people strolling in the distance
sea oat seed heads backlit by a rising sun over the oceanUsed for: Birdies at The Beach
business and civic leaders talking at an evening reception in an elegant hallUsed for: Advocacy in Action
a morning business workshop, small tables of attendees facing a presenterUsed for: Chamber Access
an empty, elegant hall set with cocktail tables for an evening receptionUsed for: Legislative Reception
the same resort beach and towers at blue hour, windows lit
The home-page background video is cut from three AI-generated clips made from these stills (the sunrise beach, the golf green and the resort beach) and carries a burned-in “AI-generated” mark. Every page also has its own share-preview card: its illustration (or, for news, the article’s own photo) under the page title, stamped “Concept redesign — not the official site”. On the main pages that card moves, as a short silent loop that Messages on iPhone and Mac plays in the link bubble: a cut of the page’s AI clip (marked “AI-generated video”) or, where a page has no clip, a slow push-in on its AI still. The scroll film on the home page is one AI-generated clip (Kling 3.0) made from the resort-beach still and its blue-hour twin, shown as 48 frames that follow your scroll; its lines are quoted from the About page.
Credits
Type: Jost by indestructible type*, under the SIL Open Font License, self-hosted. Map: Leaflet, with satellite tiles from Esri and street tiles from OpenStreetMap contributors; county boundaries from the U.S. Census Bureau TIGERweb service.
The Collaborative’s logo (header, footer) and the family-of-brands logos on the home page are reproduced from the official site only to identify the subject of this study; the orbit arrangement is this study’s, the logos and roles are theirs. It and every organization and program name belong to their owners.