Stealth Cartel has received three Platinum Awards from the 2026 dotCOMM Awards for its work on the redesigned Crimson Tree Software website:
- Business to Business
- Website Home Page Design
- Website Redesign
Platinum is the competition's highest level of recognition.
Crimson Tree Software builds TIERS for elite tax teams solving some of the most difficult problems in partnership tax.
Those problems get complicated quickly.
An engagement can involve deeply tiered ownership structures, millions of allocations, federal and multistate reporting, K-1 and K-3 production, tight deadlines, and a long trail of numbers that someone must be able to explain.
The people evaluating TIERS are used to asking where a number came from, what changed, and whether the work can be reproduced. The website needed to show its work, too.
A More Interactive Way to Explore TIERS
The previous Crimson Tree website was a visually striking Squarespace site. For the redesign, we wanted to use Second Wind, Crimson Tree's own enterprise AI orchestration platform, as part of the build and give visitors a more interactive way to explore TIERS.
The new site brings the company's history, product architecture, real interfaces, client evidence, and path to a briefing into one connected experience.
Visitors can begin with the homepage, move into an 11-capability Demo Library, and investigate the parts of TIERS most relevant to their own work. When a real use case emerges, they can request a briefing with the Crimson Tree team.
What Changed
Glass-Box Architecture, Explained Visually
TIERS combines deterministic tax calculation with AI-assisted preparation, explanation, diagnosis, and review.
The homepage uses custom cards and lightweight animation to show where deterministic calculation ends and AI assistance begins. Its "Burden of Proof" experience demonstrates how an output can be followed back through its underlying data and allocation path.
The distinction matters in partnership tax.
A plausible answer is not enough.
The calculation must be reproducible, and the professionals responsible for it need to understand how the system reached the result.
Real Product Interfaces on the Homepage
The homepage introduces three working TIERS capabilities:
- A dynamic organization chart for exploring complex partnership structures
- K-1 variance comparison for reviewing what changed and why
- A state apportionment matrix for federal and multistate calculations
These are real interfaces from the platform, not illustrations of what it might eventually do.
A custom guided tour uses callouts, autoplay, zoom controls, keyboard navigation, and accessibility support to help visitors inspect the product at their own pace.
An 11-Capability Demo Library
The Demo Library takes the product story further with recorded runs and production screenshots.
Visitors can explore tiered partnership calculations, trial balance mapping, K-1 and K-3 production, multi-user branching and merging, audit history, state apportionment, engagement dashboards, and other parts of the TIERS workflow.
Each capability has a dedicated page with explanatory copy and enlarged product views. The permanent URLs also make individual demonstrations easy to share with other members of an evaluation team.
Designed for an Audit-Minded Audience
The site's visual system draws from the working world of its buyers rather than conventional SaaS design trends.
Cream paper, dark ink, crimson "auditor's red," ledger rules, numbered sections, and editorial typography create a restrained enterprise identity. Oswald provides structure, Newsreader brings an editorial quality to the narrative, and JetBrains Mono supports technical details and data-oriented elements.
Long pages follow ledger-like vertical rules marked by crimson nodes, helping readers keep their place as they move through the story. Real TIERS screens, named client perspectives, and traceable demonstrations keep the evidence close at hand.
Custom illustrations add a human presence to all that technical rigor. The homepage artwork places a tax professional at work across two monitors, using the system rather than standing beside it for a stock-photo moment. Throughout the experience, the human figures add warmth while reinforcing a central idea behind TIERS: calculations can be automated and AI can assist with preparation and review, but people remain responsible for understanding and defending the work.
The experience feels familiar to professionals who review workpapers, follow calculations, and ask where every number came from, while still giving Crimson Tree a visual identity of its own.
A Direct Path to the Crimson Tree Team
The site gives visitors room to do some homework before contacting Crimson Tree.
By the time someone reaches the briefing request, they may already have explored the architecture, reviewed the company's engineering history, and opened the demonstrations closest to their own work.
How We Built with Second Wind
The website was conceptualized and built in collaboration with Crimson Tree's own enterprise AI orchestration platform, Second Wind.
Second Wind worked alongside the Stealth Cartel and Crimson Tree teams throughout the process, supporting research, exploration, content, critique, and implementation. Claude helped with early concept and design exploration, while Cursor supported production development.
There were also multiple wireframe rounds, design revisions, and plenty of moments when something was close, but not quite right.
The process reflected the philosophy behind TIERS itself: give AI meaningful work while keeping people responsible for the decisions.
For Stealth Cartel, the project also reflects a belief that guides much of our work. In complex B2B markets, design should help buyers understand the product, examine its claims, and make a better decision.
We are delighted to see that work recognized with three Platinum Awards.
The 2026 dotCOMM Awards
On July 28, 2026, dotCOMM Awards announced the winners of its international competition honoring excellence in web creativity, digital communication, and marketing.
This year's competition received more than 2,000 entries from the United States, Canada, and 22 additional countries. Winners were selected across 272 categories, with Platinum Awards representing the competition's highest level of recognition.
The dotCOMM Awards program is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, an international organization of marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, media production, and freelance professionals.
Explore the award-winning website:
Explore the TIERS Demo Library: