Design and development, kept in one pair of hands

I design websites, and then I build them. Keeping both halves in one pair of hands is deliberate — a design that ignores how it will be built tends to arrive on the web looking like a compromise, and a build with nobody minding the design tends to arrive looking like nothing at all.

Most of my work starts with a conversation rather than a brief. People rarely arrive knowing exactly what they need; they know what is not working. Sitting with that for a while, before anything gets drawn, is usually where the useful decisions get made.

Recently that has meant a run of work in legal technology — sites for products that take a tedious, invisible task and remove it. Designing for lawyers taught me something useful: an audience with no patience for decoration is the fastest way to find out whether your structure is any good.

I care about the ordinary things. That text is comfortable to read. That the site loads quickly on a phone with two bars of signal. That someone can find the contact details without hunting. These are unglamorous, and they are most of what separates a site that works from one that merely looks finished.

I work with small businesses, product teams, and independent professionals who want someone they can talk to directly. If that sounds like the kind of working relationship you are after, I would be glad to hear from you.