Deirdre Brandner is a child psychologist based in Australia. We'd worked together before, so when she needed a website refresh she came to us. She had sourced a quote from an agency closer to home first, and the number was enough that she wished she'd called us before bothering.
We already knew her, already understood how she wanted to present her services online. We quoted her fairly, wrote all the copy, built her a beautiful, functional and converting website that she loved, and we're still in touch. It was a very enjoyable project and a good reminder that the gap between what people assume something will cost and what it actually costs is often larger than it needs to be.
That's usually where the conversation starts. Someone has a sense that something isn't working, or that their business has grown past the way it currently looks, or that they want to be taken more seriously by the kind of clients they're trying to attract. They come in with a brief, and we listen to it carefully before we start asking questions.
The questions are the part people don't always expect.
We ask where the business is now and where it wants to be. We ask about the target market, the competitors, what's working. We also ask things like: do you feel like you've outgrown how your business looks? Do you want to be able to charge more for what you do? Are you building toward a sale in the next few years? These aren't questions that have an obvious right answer. They're the ones that tend to get to the real brief, which isn't always the same as the stated one.
A business owner might come in thinking they need a new logo when what they actually need is a clearer sense of who they're talking to. Or they might think they need everything redone when a few targeted changes would shift the whole impression. We work that out at the start.
From there we build a strategy, research the market, look at competitors, and present two or three mood boards representing different visual directions. Not logo options, just the overall feeling of where the brand could go. Once the direction is agreed we move into design, present concepts on realistic mockups to help the client envision them in real life, take feedback, and work toward final deliverables. We also liaise with whoever needs to bring things to life beyond the screen such as print suppliers and sign writers.
After a project wraps up, most clients stay in touch. We know the business well by that point and that's useful on both sides.
The businesses we work with range from local trades and hospitality to professional services and product brands. The size of the brief varies. What tends to be consistent is that the people behind them care about doing good work and want the way they present themselves to reflect that.
If you've been putting off a conversation like this because you assumed it wasn't the right time, or the right budget, or the right kind of studio, it's worth picking up the phone. The brief usually turns into something more interesting than expected.
