Case study · Capture, Create & Connect · CS-001

A website for a place worth visiting

Shaka Surf School & Lodge had one of the best stories on the Eastern Cape. You just couldn't find it anywhere online.

Client

Shaka Surf School & Lodge

Place

Port Alfred · Eastern Cape

Year

2026

Services

Photography · Website Design · Development · Content Templates

01The brief, in one line

Build a website that makes someone feel like they're already there — before they've booked a single night.

Kye Macgregor built Shaka Surf School & Lodge into one of the best-kept secrets on the South African coastline — fully booked by word of mouth, but almost invisible online. No website, bookings taken by DM, and no way for someone who hadn't already heard of it to find it or trust it. We had three weeks on location and a camera.

A surfer carving hard off the top of a wave, spray flying — CS-001 · Port Alfred · the morning session — the image that opens the site

02How we worked

Shoot first. Design second.

Three weeks on location — the morning session, dinner with the guests, the lesson where someone stood up for the first time. We shot all of it before we opened a design file, and wrote the site in the language guests actually used.

stood up on the second lesson —

03The system

Three pillars, one system.

Surf Lessons

Every lesson booked through a branded, scan-to-book flyer.

Branded testimonial postcard — a Google review from a family surf lesson

Community

Every review turned into something worth sharing.

The Lodge & Heritage

Dave Macgregor built the lodge himself, beam by beam — a home in the trees, not a hotel.

The lodge's lounge, with a surfboard mounted above African art and warm timber

The treehouse lodge, built up into the branches

A sitting room in the lodge, looking out over the forest canopy

A quiet deck built into the trees around the lodge

04The website

See it live.

shakasurfschool.org ↗

Built from scratch — no templates, no stock imagery. Every photo is ours, and a live tide widget and surf cam are built straight in.

Live · built by us, start to finishshakasurfschool.org ↗

05The outcome

+40%

Enquiries · first three months

In the three months after launch, enquiries rose 40% — and bookings with them. People who'd never heard of the place were arriving because, for the first time, they could find it and feel it before they came.

In their words

“They perfectly captured
the spirit of Shaka.”
“They perfectly captured the spirit of Shaka. Since launching we’ve seen a 40% increase in enquiries in the first three months.”
Kye Macgregor · Shaka Surf School & Lodge · Port Alfred

ColophonCredits & specification

Client: Shaka Surf School & Lodge
Reference: CS-001
Services: Photography · Website Design · Copywriting · Development · Content Templates
Technology: Next.js · Tailwind CSS · Sanity
Photography: SHAKA Studios — Georgia & Cuan
Live site: shakasurfschool.org
Year: 2026

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