Behind the rebrand
Same business. Finally systematized.
Cray Networks has served Central Texas since 2003. This rebrand keeps the blue, the white, and the trust, and gives it a real design system, a live theme, and a dark mode it never had. Here is how it came together.
Where we were, where we ended up
Drag to move between the 2003 site and the rebrand.
Before: Four feature buttons plus eight nav items competing for attention.
After: One clear path: Request a quote.
Before: Heavy blue chrome, an ornate background, and a snapshot of the building.
After: A committed navy band with a typographic hero.
Before: No dark mode; fixed, dated styling.
After: First-class light and dark, themeable live.
Before: Google+, Facebook, and Yelp badges in the sidebar.
After: Current, accessible, fast, and token-driven.
years serving Central Texas
components, dogfooded
first-class themes
palettes, fonts, and layouts, reshaped live
The decisions, and why
Typeface
Hanken Grotesk for headings, Literata for reading, both variable and self-hosted. A sans display face against a serif text face creates contrast on a real axis, and the serif carries the warm, trustworthy tone the brand is after.
Color
Cray already owned a cyan-leaning blue, a navy, and white. The rebrand systematizes that identity in OKLCH for perceptually even ramps and a dark mode that stays in lockstep, with one amber accent that was already in their world.
Imagery
The before is the real 2003-era site, screenshotted, not a flattering reconstruction. The hero is a live network graph instead of stock photography, so the brand metaphor moves.
The mark
The 2003 site set its name in flat text over a photo of the building. The rebrand replaces that with a mark that means something. Hover to zoom toward a detail, and open the numbered points for why each piece is there.
The system is alive
This page obeys the same tokens as the rest of the site. Use the Theme control in the corner to change the accent, the type, even the hero graph, and watch everything here move with it.
Built in the open
Layer by layer, each stage an atomic, tagged commit whose message explains the why. The git history is part of the work.
The build is the argument. Nothing here is claimed that the code does not show. Thanks for scrolling.