I first met Malik through a zine I was contracted to design for the Riverside Art Museum in 2025, his story was one of the features inside. We stayed in touch, and I kept the door open to build his portfolio whenever he was ready.

When that moment came, the goal was simple: give Malik a home for work that already lived in institutional spaces, and make it something he could update himself. The design intent is editorial and restrained — photography is something you move through, not just scroll past.

Photography as spatial experience

Navigation uses mix-blend-difference so the header reads on any photograph underneath. A vertical strip of thumbnails drives the hero — hover swaps the background, inactive thumbs fall to grayscale.

Features

1. 1Full-bleed hero with thumbnail strip and 600ms crossfade on hover
2. 2Custom-cursor lightbox with half-screen prev/next zones and keyboard navigation
3. 3Responsive masonry gallery with staggered fade-in on scroll
4. 4Sanity-backed gallery with drag-to-reorder and per-photo location/year captions
5. 5Embedded Studio at /studio so Malik edits without a separate CMS login
6. 6Lenis smooth scroll with per-page exceptions for fixed layouts