How I designed the Codeboxx website to make an industrial supplier stand out

People don’t buy products from companies they don’t trust. That might sound obvious, but it’s remarkable how many technical websites expect visitors to decode specifications, compare unfamiliar part numbers, and somehow arrive at the right decision on their own.

The more specialist the product is, the more important it becomes to trust the people supplying it. That’s the idea behind the work I did for Codeboxx.

Turning expertise into a better customer experience

Codeboxx supplies thermal printheads, thermal transfer ribbons, printers, and technical support to manufacturers across the UK and Europe. Their customers aren’t casual shoppers. They’re engineers, production managers, and purchasing teams who need reliable equipment to keep production lines moving.

That interested me because it’s exactly the sort of design problem I enjoy solving. This wasn’t about making an industrial supplier website look prettier. It was about creating a brand customers could trust long before they placed an order.

Understanding before decoration

One assumption changed almost immediately. I expected the challenge to be organisational. Instead, I discovered the real problem was creating trust. Codeboxx knows its products inside out and it was easy to assume visitors shared that knowledge.

Those people don’t want another product catalogue. They want to buy from a brand they can trust. That changed every design decision that followed. Customers can still browse products, but they can also understand how Codeboxx provide something even more vital: peace of mind.

Explaining instead of decorating

Every illustration on a website has a job to do. They’re not there to fill empty space or make the pages feel more colourful. They exist because they can communicate something deeper than words alone. For Codeboxx that is that keeping customers’ production lines moving is an art. That gave me an idea. If thermal printing revolves around tiny black marks carrying information, what if I used that same language to create something unexpected?

QR codes carry information through patterns and shapes. Once I’d made that connection, I started wondering whether those tiny patterns could carry pictures as well as data. That single thought led to an afternoon of experiments, and eventually to recreating famous paintings from QR-code textures.

I made a series of artworks, including the Mona Lisa, Munch’s The Scream, and several by Vincent Van Gogh, by creating a set of QR code textures with different densities from light to dark. Then, I placed these shaders over reproductions of the paintings.

Product images from this industry are, well, dull. Even the manufacturers’ own product shots look dreadful. So, instead of showing dozens of printheads and ribbons that all look identical, I made animated graphics that represent each product category.

What I learned

This project reminded me that expertise can sometimes become its own obstacle. When you know a subject inside out, it’s surprisingly difficult to remember what it feels like not to know it. That’s why so many specialist businesses accidentally write for themselves instead of their customers.

Good design isn’t just about helping people understand products. It’s about helping them understand the business behind those products. Once people trust the company, comparing printheads and ribbons becomes much less intimidating.

See the finished project

The finished Codeboxx website combines content strategy, illustration, typography, and modern web development to make specialist products easier to understand while helping the business distinguish itself from its competitors. See the final Codeboxx website design.

Related reading

• My Codeboxx portfolio page
• Last week in the studio (CW17-26): A series of artworks from QR codes
• Last week in the studio (CW18-26): Designing for print
• Design a new website or product