---
slug: fd-homes
client: 'FD Homes Investments'
category: ['Branding', 'Design', 'Development']
date: '2026'
website: https://fdhomes.de
services: ['Logo Design', 'Corporate Design', 'Web Design', 'Development', 'SEO Optimization']
technologies:
    - Laravel
    - Vue.js
    - Inertia.js
    - TypeScript
    - Adobe Illustrator
    - Figma
title: 'Logo and Website for a Real Estate Investor, by Day and by Night'
story_preview: "FD Homes Investments is Frank Damm's new brand for tax-optimized new-build rental investments in Kassel. We developed the logo and the website in parallel: a mark drawn from a single line, an animated thirds model, a depreciation chart that calculates as you scroll, and a hero that turns to night on its own at 8 pm."
fineprint: 'Logo and website from one hand, from the first email in late August to launch in late September 2026: 14 logo variants, a logo package with a mini style guide, a one-pager with 16 sections, guide subpages, day and night mode, consent-based tracking and structured data.'
---

> **Case study source:** https://unlimited.studio/en/case-study/fd-homes

# Turning Tax Burden into Real Estate

Frank Damm has worked in construction and real estate investment for many years. FD Homes Investments brings that together in a brand of his own: rented new-build apartments in Kassel as an investment, often off-market, for people with a high tax rate. There was no old website and no logo either. We developed both in parallel. The website got rolling first, and the logo had to prove itself on it.

## "The Website Is Too Dark!?"

That is how the first feedback email began. Whether a website is too dark or too bright is a matter of taste. At FD Homes the audience decides: people who read up on real estate investments on the sofa in the evening after a long working day. A glaring white screen at 10 pm makes you tired, and tired people click away.

So we turned the problem into an animated feature. The page reads the time: from 6 am to 8 pm fdhomes.de shows the houses by day, after that by night. The same page, two moods of light, no switch anyone has to press.

- **Hero as an Opening Sequence:** On load a timelapse runs from dusk into night, and only then do the headline, the rapport and the glass card with the entry point appear.
- **Switch with a Click:** Anyone who switches by hand sees the same facade run into the day. Browsers don't play videos backwards, so the timelapse exists as a second, reversed cut.
- **One Token Set, Two Modes:** Colors, logo, rapport and images hang on one class. The server renders the night and the time only decides in the browser, so nothing flashes on load.

## Calculating Without Advising

Tax benefits are hard to explain and easy to overpromise. The page therefore shows how the calculation works, not what comes out at the end.

- **Thirds Model:** A ring builds itself as soon as it comes into view. Tenant, state and investor each carry a third of the debt service. Arc, line, icon and label follow a single progress value.
- **The Tax Lever:** A bar chart across 33 years switches from linear to declining-balance depreciation to the combined path with special depreciation as you scroll. The section holds still meanwhile, the tabs fill along, and afterwards you can choose freely.
- **Orientation Instead of a Calculator:** A question flow collects the key figures for the first conversation, such as the taxable annual income. There is deliberately no result figure, because that would be tax advice. The client wrote the note on this himself.
- **Guide:** Dedicated subpages on special depreciation under § 7b and declining-balance depreciation for anyone who wants the details.

## Access Instead of a Form Wall

Off-market means the best properties aren't online. The page therefore shows projects only at project level, such as Park Schönfeld in Kassel-Süd, and leads from there into a conversation instead of an exposé form. A process in five steps, the scope of services, the target groups and an FAQ answer beforehand what an investor wants to know before the first call. At the end stands Frank Damm himself, with exactly one phone number.

## "To Be Honest, I Don't Quite Like the Logo Yet!"

That is how the logo design began. Frank Damm had already seen the first draft on the website and asked for more variants: three-dimensional, more geometric, more purist, but all matching the website. The result was 14 variants, one of which spoke to him right away.

- **A Mark from One Line:** The winner was a flat outline variant in horizontal orientation. F and D share one frame and one continuous line.
- **Rapport:** The same line became the pattern that grows out of the corner in the hero and continues on letterhead and facade.
- **Logo Package:** All variants for web and print, light and dark, as combined mark, mark and square, plus a mini style guide that puts the corporate design in writing.

## Under the Hood

The site runs on our own platform with Laravel, Inertia and Vue, with server-side rendering. Instrument Serif and Inter are self-hosted. Structured data describes FD Homes as a `RealEstateAgent` and Frank Damm as a `Person`. Google Analytics and the Tag Manager load only after consent, Search Console is verified and the sitemap submitted. The AI-generated images and the hero timelapse are labeled in the legal notice.

## The Result

A new brand with logo, style guide and website, built in one month. The page explains a complicated calculation without promising it, and adapts to the time of day of its visitors. A Paperwhite display would probably solve the problem too. But who looks at websites on a Kindle?