The right engagement for what changed.
Website Design and Branding are the two primary disciplines. Strategy, content, development, search and improvement support the decision rather than competing for attention.
Start with the problem, not the service.
You do not need to have decided between a rebrand and a rebuild. Describe what is going wrong and that part gets worked out together.
The website is out of date
What you sell, or who you sell it to, has changed since the site was built.
02The brand and the website disagree
The identity and the website give different impressions, and fixing one without the other rarely works.
03People misunderstand what you do
The explanation works in person but has never quite worked in writing.
04There is no agreement internally
Different people want different things from the project, and no decision has been made.
Set two against each other.
The seven engagements below overlap, and the useful question is rarely what they are called. Put two side by side and the difference is in what each one decides, how long it runs, and who it is wrong for.
- The business has changed and the website has not.
- Your strongest evidence is buried several clicks down.
- You would rather deal with one person than coordinate three suppliers.
- A template reskin with your logo dropped in. Other studios do that for less.
- Starting before someone internally can approve decisions.
- 01Which audiences the site should prioritise
- 02Which evidence belongs early in the page
- 03What your team needs to be able to edit themselves
Usually 10 to 16 weeks
From a straight redesign to a site serving several different audiences
- Both the brand and the website need work.
- The repositioning has to end up as a working website, not a guidelines document.
- You want one supplier accountable for the whole thing.
- Two unrelated pieces of work that need separate suppliers.
- A launch date that leaves no room for the strategy work.
- 01What the company stands for, in plain language
- 02How that becomes structure, copy and visual identity
- 03What launches together and what can follow
Usually 16 to 24 weeks
Everything from the positioning through to the site going live
Every engagement starts from $5,000. Both columns are the studio’s published scope and timings, not an estimate for your project.
All seven engagements
- 01Website DesignFor companies whose website no longer matches what they sell or who they sell it to.
- 02BrandingFor companies whose identity was designed for a smaller or different version of the business.
- 03Brand + WebsiteOne programme covering the identity and the website, run by one person.
- 04Direction SprintA short piece of paid work to establish what the real problem is.
- 05Web Development & CMSBuilding and launching a site, with a CMS your team can run day to day.
- 06Search, Conversion & GrowthImproving how you get found, and what happens after someone lands.
- 07Website ImprovementOngoing improvement for a site that works but could work harder.
How the work runs.
Five stages, in this order. Here is what happens in each one and where you come into it.
Discovery
Interviews with you and with the people who sell or deliver day to day. This is also where we look at whatever analytics and enquiry data exists.
YouInterviewed, along with the people who sell or deliver day to day.
Structure and strategy
You get a written view of who the site is for, what it needs to say and how it is organised. Nothing gets designed until that is agreed.
YouAgree the structure before anything is designed.
Design and writing
Pages are designed and written at the same time. You review real pages with real copy rather than mood boards, which makes the feedback far more useful.
YouReview real pages with real copy, not mood boards.
Build and launch
Development, testing across devices and assistive technology, content migration and launch. Your team gets training before handover, not a PDF afterwards.
YouTrained before handover.
After launch
A few weeks of monitoring once real traffic arrives, then a short written view of what is worth changing next. Some clients stop here and some carry on monthly.
YouSent a written view of what is worth changing next.