A world-class website that organizes a massive amount of information into a clean, simple, and beautiful Nordic design.
One unified look for the whole country by successfully creating the brand.estonia.ee hub, making sure all state marketing speaks the same visual language.
A shared heartbeat for a massive project, blurring the lines between client and agency. We spoke the same language, shared the same worries, and celebrated the same wins. That complete openness is how we got dozens of different stakeholders to agree on a single, beautiful vision.
Awards
✺Kuldmuna 2026 - Silver in the Homepage category
Background
We are used to cracking all kinds of hard nuts, but when the invitation to redesign estonia.ee landed on our desks, our pulses definitely quickened a bit. This project meant rewriting the digital front door to our nation – Estonia’s handshake with the world. Our goal was to create a highly functional, inspiring state website that sets a global standard.
With dozens of stakeholders, shifting brand guidelines, and a lot of national pride on the line, nearly every single person at NOPE went through this project. Fueled by the excitement of building something for our own country, we set out to turn a bold vision into a future-proof reality.
From the fruits of this collaboration, the national design system DDS 2.0 grew under the leadership of Alina Trussova. This is a strategically structured and thoroughly documented architecture that connects user needs with the state’s digital capabilities, serving as the foundation for every subsequent state website.
Interior design in a dark room
We started in June 2025 with the ambition to create something visually striking and impactful. But when you pile too many lights and whistles onto a website, the visitor loses focus. Estonia’s digital face needed to inspire with its Nordic clarity. This is an information website, where minimalist airiness outweighs any cool animations.
We faced a challenge where, as we were locking down the information architecture, it still wasn’t clear who would be doing the brand refresh. It was like doing interior design in a dark room. You know where the walls are, but you choose the wallpaper and colors when someone turns on the light.
In this uncertainty, we had to solve a puzzle of designing an information website without the final content and without knowing what its face will look like. Creating a frame structure in a situation where you aren’t sure how much playroom the renewing brand system will leave is a tough nut to crack.
We took the content of the previous website as a starting point and built a new information architecture on top of it, both on a conceptual and content level. We played through different scenarios and dream options that could enrich the website in the future, and filtered out the solutions that were doable at that moment. The user interface design was already in full swing when the brand partner came on board, which meant the visual identity took shape in real time. The whole process required some serious creative acrobatics.
Knowing when to press the pause button
When you are navigating through a dense fog of uncertainty, it’s easy to burn through a budget on pure guesswork. At one point, we made a tough call and pressed the pause button.
Taking that timeout to let ideas settle and realign the foundation in a way saved the project. It built a deep level of trust that carried us through the rest of the timeline. To keep things moving smoothly after the restart, our project managers adopted a simple and clear approach. We insisted on dedicated internal sync periods for the client team and assigned a specific owner to every single task.
Before long, the initial hesitation dissolved. We weren’t just an agency and a client anymore. We were one unified crew sailing toward the same destination.
From flashy fireworks to Nordic minimal
The original creative brief was packed with ideas for big animations and “wow” factors – the ultimate flashy state website. But as we dug deeper into how people actually use the platform, our philosophy shifted.
For a gateway site that links out to prominent portals, clarity is the ultimate feature. If a user is trying to figure out how to move their business to Estonia, they don’t want to wait out a five-second animation.
The main challenge was striking a balance between the familiar and the futuristic:
The “digital junk drawer” cleanup: The original Information Architecture (IA) was overwhelming. We stripped it down to the basics, opting for an airy, minimalist Nordic aesthetic where the content does the heavy lifting.
The card system: Because estonia.ee is essentially a massive directory of links, we spent a while obsessing over a smart card system. We turned standard text links into engaging, structured visual paths.
Ambitious navigation: We tossed out basic menu ideas and engineered advanced dropdowns featuring preview cards. Now, users know exactly where they are heading before they even click.
We almost skipped user testing to save time, but we are incredibly glad we didn’t. Watching real people interact with our prototypes allowed us to smooth out friction points we otherwise would have missed.
A design system that makes national marketing speak the same language
The end result wasn’t just a beautiful website. We helped take Estonia’s national design system to a new level. Under the leadership of Alina Trussova, the components and visual direction created for estonia.ee became an important foundation that scaled into a comprehensive national design and ecosystem. When a brand renews, the websites must be perfect examples of that identity – which is why estonia.ee is the first public-facing environment to implement the best practices of DDS 2.0 (Digital Design System).
The heart and “bible” of the entire system is the brand web brand.estonia.ee, which brings together the principles and practical tools of the new design language, with estonia.ee serving as the first thorough example of this system. The created solutions are now integrated into the national design language, ensuring visual and functional consistency at every level.
However, the impact of this work reaches far beyond design files. The created DDS 2.0 components are, in turn, the basis for the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency’s new codebase. This means that all future state websites can rely on the same technological and visual foundation. This is a strategic victory, where smart design and its skillful development mean direct time and financial savings in the future.
What a ride
This project proved that you don’t need a hundred-person agency and a huge budget to execute world-class work. You just need a tight-knit team that isn’t afraid to be honest, have the difficult conversations, and design with absolute purpose.
Working with you was fantastic, we thoroughly enjoyed the journey! It was so cool to see how you shaped our (sometimes quite scattered) ideas into something awesome week after week. Thank you for the entire process and the amazing final result!
Got an idea? We’ve got the solution! We’re not afraid of cracking tough digital nuts, but we bring that exact same passion to helping smaller businesses build clean brands and functional websites that actually work. Drop us a line and let’s see how we can help.
