Notes
Writing on brand strategy, identity, and web design for startups: what things cost, what's included, and how we think about the work.
-
How we build a website, start to finish
Discovery, design, build, launch. Four phases, about four weeks. What happens in each one, what we need from you, and why the order saves you money.
Read -
How we build a brand, start to finish
A brand runs six weeks and five phases: founder sessions, positioning, identity, refinement, delivery. Strategy first, design second. What each phase does, and why we never start with a logo.
Read -
Discovery: the questions we ask before designing
The first three days of a website project. No design tool opens. We map your business, your customers, and what each page has to do, so the design answers a brief instead of a guess.
Read -
Design: the reusable system behind every page
Days 4 to 12 of a website project. We design the parts once, then assemble pages from them, so the site stays consistent, builds faster, and is easy to add to after launch.
Read -
Build: clean code, fast pages, found by search
Days 12 to 22 of a website project. We turn the signed-off design into fast, clean code, with performance, SEO, and answer-engine readiness built in from the first commit rather than patched on at the end.
Read -
Launch: the pre-launch checklist we run every time
The last week of a website project. Every site gets the same fifteen checks before it goes live, refined over years of shipping, so launch day is verification instead of a scramble. Two weeks of support included.
Read -
Founder sessions: where the brand actually starts
Week one of a brand project. Two or three working sessions with the founders to understand the market, the customer, and where you sit among the alternatives. No design yet, just the raw material every later decision comes from.
Read -
Positioning: the decision the whole brand rests on
Week two of a brand project. We turn the founder sessions into a written brief covering what you do, who it's for, the story, and the tone. It's the decision the whole brand rests on, and it happens before any design.
Read -
Identity: one resolved direction, with the reasons
Weeks three and four of a brand project. Logo, wordmark, colour, and typography, designed as one direction that answers the positioning brief. We present a single resolved system with the reasoning behind it, not a wall of options.
Read -
Refinement: we go back and forth until it's right
Week five of a brand project. You review the identity, we refine it, and we repeat until the work is genuinely right rather than just signed off. How we run feedback so it sharpens the work instead of watering it down.
Read -
Delivery: packaged so your team can run with it
Week six, the final phase of a brand project. Brand guidelines, the full asset kit, social templates, and deck assets, packaged so your team can use the brand on their own. A brand you can't apply without us isn't finished.
Read -
Copywriting: how we approach the words
Most of what a visitor reads on your site is words, so we treat copy as part of design. Our approach draws on Ogilvy and the AIDA framework: clarity over cleverness, one promise, specifics over adjectives.
Read -
Writing that sounds human, not machine-made
AI writes fluent, forgettable copy full of tells: hollow adjectives, fake contrasts, tidy summary endings. We edit those out so your site sounds like a person who's done the work. A field guide to the patterns and how we cut them.
Read -
0/3. Search is splitting into three. Here's how to keep up.
Search is quietly separating into three places customers look: a map of nearby businesses, a direct answer read back to them, and an AI-written response that cites its sources. Here's the shape of it.
Read -
1/3. Local SEO: winning the map
The map pack is built almost entirely from Google Business Profiles, not websites. Getting your profile right, earning steady reviews, and keeping your details consistent is most of the work, and the fastest-returning corner of search.
Read -
2/3. AEO: getting picked as the answer
More searches return one direct answer at the top of the page instead of a list of links. Answer engine optimisation is the work of becoming the source that answer comes from, writing content that answers a question clearly and immediately.
Read -
3/3. GEO: showing up inside AI answers
When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews a question, they get an answer that cites a few trusted sources. Generative engine optimisation is the work of becoming one of those cited sources.
Read
We respond within hours
