The big centred sentence over a video loop. Everyone ships it. The client asks for it; the agency draws it; nobody reads it. We want to talk about what actually replaces it — because the real estate in the first 100vh is the most expensive on the internet, and most sites are renting it out for a billboard.
Why it stopped working
Visitors arrive with a question and about four seconds of patience. A centered tagline doesn't answer anything — it asserts. And the video behind it, almost always, is footage that could belong to any brand: drone shots, handshakes, type drifting left to right. No wonder the scroll depth numbers are what they are.
Three patterns that replaced it
The layered hero — a ticker at the top with operational facts (est. year, locations, current status), a type block below carrying the real tagline, and a small loop of recent work in the background. Three layers, one frame, information value on frame one.
One short email every few weeks. Like this note, but in your inbox.
The question hero — the entire first viewport is a question the visitor likely arrived with ('Still running raffles with a Google Form?'), with a single CTA below it. Works very well for SaaS where the pain is the whole story.
The editorial hero — one strong image, one small label, and the date. Reads like a magazine cover. Rare, risky, high reward. Works when the product IS design (studios, fashion, galleries).
"A hero isn't decoration. It's the first ten seconds of a conversation. If it's not carrying weight, it's a screensaver."
What we did on our own site
We killed the centered-tagline-over-video for kinetic typography on three lines + a ticker of live operational facts + four floating project loops scattered with different speeds. Information density high, motion earning its keep, no stock drone shots.
If you scroll back to the top right now, that's what you'll see. We didn't ship it to be pretty. We shipped it because every second of that viewport had to pay rent.