Homebound Shelter Stories Website — Influence Design Studio

“A portrait first. A listing second.”

Homebound belongs to a photographer who spends weekends inside New York City shelters, documenting every animal in the building. Most adoption listings reduce an animal to a thumbnail and a breed. The brief was the opposite: give each one the attention of a portrait, and let the story do the work of finding them a home.

We built the site like a field notebook. Warm paper tones carry the photography, heavy grotesque headlines set the voice, and monospaced labels turn each animal card into an intake record — breed, age, shelter, intake date, and a status tag that reads Available, Pending, or Gone Home. Every animal gets a one-line character note in italic serif and a full profile written as a short portrait. Long-form stories, a Gone Home page for adoptions, and a shelter guide close the loop, because adoption always happens with the shelters, in person.

Homebound website — The Animals page, a grid of six animal cards with status tags — 01 The Animals Every animal as an intake card: portrait, a one-line character note, the facts, and a status tag.

02 Animal Profile Each profile is written as a portrait, not a listing — who she is, what she wants, and the photographs that prove it.

Homebound website — Stories page with Six Months of Saturdays and The Night Shift — 03 Stories Long-form essays from inside the shelters, set like magazine features.

Homebound website — The Shelters page with Hollis Haven and Jamaica Bay partner cards — 04 The Shelters The partner shelters, with hours, addresses, and a direct path to adopt in person.

Outcomes: A documentary home for shelter animals — photography that earns attention, profiles that read like portraits, and a clear path from a story to a shelter door.