Bring Your Vision to Life with Custom Umbraco Design

Umbraco website design is the process of creating a bespoke website built on the Umbraco CMS platform , combining visual design, content architecture, and technical implementation into a site that's genuinely tailored to your business rather than adapted from a generic template.

Unlike template-based platforms like Squarespace or Wix, Umbraco gives designers and developers complete control over every element: page layouts, content blocks, navigation structures, media handling, and responsive breakpoints are all custom-built in HTML, CSS, and Razor. According to BuiltWith, Umbraco powers over 730,000 websites globally precisely because of this flexibility.

At Simon Antony, design is developer-led. Simon Steed — our Umbraco Certified Master and lead architect, works directly from your brand guidelines, wireframes, or Figma/Sketch files to build a pixel-perfect implementation. There's no handoff between designer and developer, which eliminates the "that's not what we designed" problem that plagues larger agencies.

Our design process follows four stages, with client review and sign-off at each gate:

Discovery and wireframing — We map your site's information architecture: page types, content relationships, navigation hierarchy, and user journeys. For most sites this produces 5-8 wireframe templates that cover every page type. This stage typically takes 1-2 weeks.

Visual design — We create high-fidelity mockups based on your brand guidelines, either from supplied design files (Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD) or designed from scratch in collaboration with you. Mobile-first responsive design is standard, not an add-on.

Umbraco build — We implement the approved designs as Umbraco document types, templates, and partial views using Razor and C#. Content editors get an intuitive back-office experience with block-based editing, media pickers, and preview functionality.

Content population and launch — We migrate or create initial content, configure hosting, set up SSL and CDN, and launch with a staged cutover plan.

The right platform depends on your needs, but Umbraco has distinct advantages for businesses that need more than a template:

Control without plugins — WordPress relies on plugins for core functionality (SEO, forms, security, caching). Each plugin is a dependency risk, outdated plugins are the number one attack vector for WordPress sites, according to Sucuri's annual hacked website report. Umbraco's custom-coded approach means fewer dependencies, fewer vulnerabilities, and complete control over your technology stack.

Enterprise capability at mid-market cost — Sitecore offers similar architectural flexibility but with licensing costs that can exceed GBP 40,000 per year. Umbraco is open-source with no licensing fees, making it accessible to businesses that need enterprise-grade content management without enterprise-grade budgets.

Content editor experience — Umbraco's back-office is consistently rated highly by content editors for its clean, intuitive interface. Document types and block-based editing make content management straightforward for non-technical team members.