This is the Best in WordPress Design. Our purpose is to highlight exceptional web design made with WordPress around the world. Each edition features a standout site and a short conversation with the creators behind it.
This month, we’re featuring General Condition and their latest website: a narrative-driven, atmospheric portfolio that blends illustration, motion, and layered storytelling into a fully custom WordPress experience. In this interview with Jovan Lakić, the studio founder, we will explore how expressive, personal, and boundary-pushing WordPress can be when treated as a creative engine.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your studio, and your process?
General Condition is an independent design studio working between Serbia and Spain, founded and led by me, Jovan Lakić. I founded it more than ten years ago as my personal space to experiment with design freely, without limitations or predefined rules. Over time, it evolved into a studio that bridges graphic design, branding, digital experiences, and visual storytelling.
Although the team expands and contracts depending on the project — bringing in developers, illustrators, motion designers, or writers — the constant thread is a focus on story and atmosphere. For us, design is not just a visual form. It is a combination of rhythm, timing, narrative, and emotion. Whether building a website or shaping an identity, the ambition is always to create a world, not a layout.
“The goal was simple: the website should feel like us. Not a template, not a portfolio grid, but a visual journal in some way.”
What inspired the creative direction behind your website?
The latest General Condition website draws inspiration from Poletarac, a Yugoslav children’s magazine from the 1970s known for its poetic and culturally rich approach to design. It treated visuals as a means of education and storytelling rather than decoration, and that spirit became the foundation for the site’s direction.
The goal was simple: the website should feel like us. Not a template, not a portfolio grid, but a visual journal in some way. Something that unfolds slowly, like turning the pages of a book. Layered imagery, su
Inspiration came from magazines, children’s books, film title sequences, vintage interface design, and music album layouts. By the way, part of the process was to listen to “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Rolling Stone magazine. And it took about two months to go through all 500 albums.
Why WordPress? How did it support your vision?
WordPress has long been the studio’s foundation for flexible, self-managed websites. Many people still see it only as a classic CMS, but when you strip it down and treat it as an open system rather than a theme marketplace, it becomes a powerful engine for custom design.
The site is fully custom-built on WordPress. The concept and structure were explored in Figma, then translated into development using plugins such as Elementor and Crocoblock. This combination provided visual freedom and fine control, enabling complex layouts and dynamic content without compromising the creative direction.
We considered other platforms, such as Webflow and Framer, but after thorough testing, WordPress proved more comprehensive in key areas and offered long-term stability, scalability, and content ownership.
I would love to see WordPress evolve visually as well. It deserves a new identity, a fresher voice, and energy for 2026 and beyond, because it still powers some of the most creative websites out there, including this one.
What challenges did you face while bringing this vision to life?
Translating an art-directed, atmospheric concept into a performant, structured WordPress site was the central challenge. The experience relies heavily on pacing, scroll rhythm, layered visuals, and subtle animations, all elements that can easily hinder performance if not handled carefully.
Working with WordPress meant pushing the tool beyond typical use cases while maintaining fast loading, responsiveness, proper SEO structure, and accessibility.
“WordPress proved more complete in key areas and offered long-term stability, scalability, and ownership of content.”
How does the final website reflect your studio’s identity and approach?
This website is likely the most accurate representation of what General Condition is today. It sits somewhere between order and emotion. It is not loud, but it has a clear voice. It uses storytelling, silence, and timing instead of marketing language. It leaves space for interpretation rather than trying to explain everything.
This mindset is embedded in our design process: slow, intentional, and driven by atmosphere. Transitions, whitespace, and pauses matter as much as typography or layout. The site acts less as a project showcase and more as a statement of how the studio thinks and works.
This is the third version of General Condition in the past 5-6 years. The first website won Elementor’s Website of the Year and mixed classical art with digital layouts. The second one was almost invisible, very minimal, and dark. This iteration feels the closest to the studio’s current perspective: human, narrative-driven, and a little strange in the best possible way.
Many thanks to Jovan and the General Condition team for sharing their process and the thinking behind their latest work. Their approach is a reminder of how WordPress can become a space for storytelling, experimentation, and deeply personal design.
Stay tuned for the next edition of Best in WordPress Design, where we continue exploring the makers pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on the open web.
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Comments
Really love hearing about this unique approach and creativity. Especially the parts about using silence and letting other people be part of the storytelling through their interpretations rather than spelling it all out exactly. So cool!!
It’s really nmrefreshing to see other people pushing the boundaries of what WordPress can be.