Pick #4 — Olha Lazarieva built a portfolio as disciplined as her design thinking

Designer: Olha Lazarieva Location: Ukraine Portfolio: olhalazarieva.com

The first thing you see is a B&W photograph of her, placed inside a rigid grid, under the words CREATIVE DESIGNER set in letters large enough to break the browser window. In the top-left corner: the number 1,618 — the golden ratio. That's the whole thesis stated upfront.

Olha Lazarieva is a web and UX/UI designer based in Ukraine who works across art direction, interface design, and frontend development. Her portfolio earned Awwwards SOTD (Site of the Day) on October 2, 2025, and a CSS Design Awards nomination the same month, scoring 8.08 in UI, 8.00 in UX, and 8.02 in Innovation from the judges panel.

The site runs on a strict two-color system — #101010 and #F7F7F7 — and uses GSAP and React to deliver parallax, animated, and typographic transitions. But the restraint is what's memorable. Every section uses the same condensed sans-serif discipline, brackets for navigation labels [ WORKS ], and big tracked numbers like 00-3 before service categories. It reads as a consistent design language, not a portfolio of styles.

Her works section has a strong staging concept: projects are presented in a virtual dark gallery room, projected on a backlit screen while the visitor "enters" the space. London Fashion Week 2026, a jewellery e-commerce site, and architect websites all get the same cinematic treatment — the container elevates the work without overshadowing it.

Source: Muzli Top 100 Best Designer Portfolio Websites of 2026 (entry #13) — muz.li — plus Awwwards and CSS Design Awards nominations.