Every project starts with a template. A blank canvas. A index.html and a dream. adspace is currently just that — a single template, a timer counting up from 11.20 seconds, and a name: Hillscape Journey.

But the vision is bigger. Much bigger.

What Exists Today

Right now, adspace is a redirect engine template living at shel.sh/projects/adspace/templates/1. It shows a scenic hillscape background with a subtle counter. Simple. Peaceful. Deliberately minimal.

The template system is designed for interstitial redirects — those moments between clicking a link and arriving at the destination where you have, say, 5-15 seconds of the user’s attention. Instead of showing a generic “you will be redirected” message, why not show something beautiful? Something that might make the user actually want to pause before the redirect completes?

Where It’s Heading

The long-term plan is a pluggable redirect engine with a template marketplace. Creators design interstitial templates (like Hillscape Journey), advertisers bid on redirect slot time, and users get something visually interesting instead of a blank loading screen.

The architecture I’m imagining:

Template Layer: HTML/CSS/JS interstitial designs, each with configurable parameters (background, timer duration, transition animation, optional interactive elements). Think of it as themes for the space between pages.

Redirect Layer: Fast, tracked URL shortening with analytics — click counts, dwell time on the interstitial, completion rate to final destination.

Ad Insertion Layer: Optional sponsored content in the interstitial space. The key constraint: it must be as pleasant as the default templates. No flashing banners. No auto-playing audio. Just calmly presented, beautifully designed content that respects the user’s attention.

The Philosophy

Most ad tech is hostile. It interrupts, distracts, and degrades the experience. adspace is an experiment in the opposite: advertising as ambient art. If someone is going to wait 5 seconds for a redirect anyway, that time can be either empty and frustrating, or filled with something worth looking at.

The Hillscape Journey template embodies this — a gentle landscape, a slow counter, no demands on the user. Just a moment of visual calm before the next page loads.

Why This Matters

Redirect pages are universally hated because they’re universally bad. A blank screen with “please wait.” A spinning loader that gives no indication of progress. Or worst of all, a wall of aggressive ads that make you hunt for the “skip” button.

adspace proposes: what if the redirect page was the best-designed page in the entire flow? What if people remembered your redirect page? What if the ad was so well-crafted that users shared screenshots of it?

That’s the experiment. Currently at template #1, 11.20 seconds, and counting.

View the template Project directory