Design
You know what your customers should be able to do, but what they get now is a patchwork of things that don’t look like they belong to the same business.
01 · Why we offer it
Why it matters to you
People decide whether to trust you in the first few seconds, and a patchwork tells them nobody is minding the whole. We design the product, the screens and the brand so they hold together.
We also build what we design, and we watch it fail, so the designs have already met a real customer before they reach you.
02 · How it goes
A week at a time
Most people start with an assessment: one week, one question, such as where your customers get lost.
After the assessment comes a prototype you can click through and use. If it earns more, it becomes a project, built in weekly steps, and you can stop after any week.
Not everything has been measured yet. We can show you the drawings, the rules and the screens working, but we don’t yet have a client-approved example to point to beyond our own site and one artist’s studio.
- Assessment. One question, answered in a week, with what we expect and what would prove us wrong written down first.
- Prototype. The smallest thing that could answer the question, working, for you to open and use.
- Project. The rest, built in weekly steps, each ending on a date you know.
- Ongoing support. After it launches, any week you want something changed, fixed or watched. No retainer.
03 · What we've built
Proof, not promises
- This site and its brand: Drawn from one mark and one set of rules that the build refuses to break.
- The Digital Studio: The screens of an artist’s private studio, built with the artist Sara Paula Hoffman.
04 · What it costs
The price, first
A week costs $5,000: five working days, a price agreed before the week starts. An assessment is one week.
For one person, a lighter week of two to three days costs $1,000.
An assessment is one week, and we agree what it will answer before it starts.
After that, you decide week by week whether the prototype or the project is worth another.
05 · When we'd say no
When not to hire us
If you need a credible site quickly and a template fits what you sell, a site builder is the right call: Squarespace plans run $19 to $99 a month billed yearly. If you need only a logo and have a clear brief, a design contest is: 99designs logo packages run $249 to $1,050. If you have steady, high-volume marketing creative across many channels, a subscription team is built for that: Superside starts at $15,000 a month on an annual term. We’re worth hiring when the work is a connected system across product, interface and brand, with people who stay to build it.
You get the files you can open: the drawings, the type, the color values and the rules for using them, written down so another designer can carry on. Nothing is locked inside our tools.
06 · Questions
About the price, and the work
- Why a weekly price and not hourly?
- You buy a result, not hours. You know the most a week will cost before it starts, and you can stop after any week. With an hourly rate the risk is yours: the hours run whether or not the work does.
- What is an hour of your time worth?
- We’ll tell you. A $5,000 week is five working days, so an hour comes to about $125 if a day is eight hours. At the lighter rate for one person, a week of two to three days comes to roughly $40 to $60 an hour. Our hours aren’t the cheapest you can buy, and we won’t claim they are. What you’re buying is the week’s result.
- Can I buy less than a week?
- Yes. Our smallest step is a light week of two to three days, at the lighter rate for one person.
- Do you only design, or do you build too?
- We build what we design. Watching our own designs fail in use is how they get better before they reach you.
- What do I get at the end of an assessment?
- An answer to the one question we agreed on, with what we expected and what would have proved us wrong written down first.
- Can another designer carry on from your files?
- Yes. The rules for the type, color and drawings are written down, so someone else can follow them without us.
Design
Start with one question.
A free first call, one question, and a week of work you can stop after.