You probably don't need the splash screen though. It a blocker to the user in getting to the information contained within. I clicked the the "Browse Knowledge" link first and spent a few minutes happily discovering information about the history of industrial design. However when I went back and clicked "Discover design" I thought I had landed on a poor pinterest clone for product design.
Personally I think the Commentary on the items is your USP and it should be front and center. Possibly allow users to filter between the imagery and the posts within in the same view.
All of this aside I have bookmarked your site I like it a lot.
Great work and good luck.
We implemented the concept of knowledge over design. As you said our USP is the knowledge shared by our users. Now you can share your knowledge right on the front page of a design if you are logged in. And we hide the detail information of a design in the side bar page.
You might want to keep the same proportions on mobile though. Your responsive design loses the multiple items on the list and could give the impression that there's only one item on the page.
https://joycetower.ie/