Harlow Singapore - property website design for a city-state agency

Harlow Singapore covers every district of a city-state, plus nine regional desks for clients buying across Asia. The edition speaks Singapore property: psf pricing, MRT lines, conservation shophouses, HDB resale and condos, Pte Ltd with UEN and CEA numbers. It follows the PDPA, with a Data Protection Officer.

Project facts

• Client: Harlow Realty Pte Ltd (fictional)
• Sector: Residential property agency
• Markets: Singapore plus regional desks in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta, Hong Kong and more
• Services: Market localisation · Copywriting · Brand adaptation · Real estate website design · Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) · SEO foundations
• Templates: 9 page templates shared with every Harlow edition
• Stack: Hand-built HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript; one strings file and one theme file per market

The brief

One city, many markets

Singapore has no counties or states, so the markets page becomes districts and landed estates, followed by regional desks for buyers investing in Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, the UK and Japan. Copy is multicultural and precise, with Singlish kept out of brand voice. The equal-treatment statement carves out HDB's Ethnic Integration Policy, which legally applies to resale flats.

Designing for Singapore

What actually changed between the US and this edition

• Story - US edition: 27 US markets · Singapore: Singapore plus nine regional desks
• Guide - US edition: West Village · Singapore: Tiong Bahru: art deco flats, the hawker market, East-West line
• Prices - US edition: $1,895,000 median · Singapore: S$2,150 psf; S$5,800 a month (2-bedroom)
• Homes - US edition: Townhouse, co-op, condo · Singapore: Conservation shophouse, art deco apartment, new launch, Good Class Bungalow
• Search - US edition: ZIP · Singapore: District, development, address or postal code
• Legal - US edition: Fair Housing · Singapore: PDPA with a Data Protection Officer, Do Not Call checks; fair consideration statement
• Look - US edition: Ivory, bronze, Cormorant · Singapore: Clean white, tropical green and coral; Young Serif + Plus Jakarta Sans, rounded corners

Brand adaptation

The same Harlow, with a local accent

Tropical green carries the interface and coral adds warmth to italics, with a lighter coral on dark panels. Young Serif brings character to headlines; Plus Jakarta Sans, designed in Southeast Asia, keeps the interface modern. The descriptor becomes Realty.

Homepage and neighbourhood guide

A restored shophouse facade opens the site. Region cards cover Marina Bay, Orchard, Tanjong Pagar, East Coast, Sentosa Cove and Punggol. The Tiong Bahru guide gives condo psf, monthly rent, resale transactions, time to Raffles Place and the MRT station, with favourites from Tiong Bahru Market to Yong Siak Street.

Compliance, accessibility and trust

• Privacy policy under the PDPA, with a Data Protection Officer, customer due diligence and Do Not Call Registry checks.
• Fair consideration statement, except where HDB's Ethnic Integration Policy legally applies.
• Footer with demo UEN and CEA licence numbers.
• Passes automated WCAG 2.2 AA checks on every page at 360, 390, 768 and 1440 px: no contrast failures, no unreachable controls, no horizontal scrolling.
• A language switcher built from hreflang sits in the header on desktop and in the footer on phones.

One system, twelve markets

Every visible string lives in one file per market, and every colour and typeface in one theme file. This edition needed no new templates or components: a strings file, a theme, regional photography and local legal content made it a different brand experience. For a property group with international plans, a new market becomes a content project rather than a rebuild.

Deliverables

• Market profile: language, formats, legal and seasonality
• Full localised copy across 9 templates, header, footer and forms
• Brand adaptation: palette, type pairing and logo descriptor
• 21 regional photographs (Pexels, credited in credits.json)
• Local legal content
• Accessibility pass (WCAG 2.2 AA, automated) and QA at four screen widths
• Portfolio media: stills, full-page captures, scroll video, OG image, brand board