Journal

Writing on brand, product and design.

Practical notes from nearly two decades of building brands, products and teams. Short pieces, written to be useful.

How much does branding cost?

Branding can cost anywhere from a few hundred pounds to tens of thousands. Here is what sets the price, and what you actually get at each level.

6 min read

Business6 min

How much does an ecommerce website cost?

An online store can cost a few hundred pounds or six figures. The difference is scope, design and how hard it works to sell.

Practice6 min

Squarespace vs a custom website: which is right for you?

Squarespace is brilliant for some businesses and a ceiling for others. Here is how to tell which one you are.

Practice5 min

Is a template website enough for your business?

Sometimes yes. Sometimes it is quietly costing you customers. Here is how to tell the difference.

Product6 min

Why your website isn't converting, and how to fix it

Traffic without enquiries usually means the problem is on the page, not in the ads. Here are the usual culprits, and the fixes.

Product5 min

Signs your website needs a redesign

A website has a shelf life. Here are the honest signs yours has reached the end of it, and when a few fixes will do instead.

Practice6 min

How to choose a web design agency

The cheapest quote and the biggest agency are both usually the wrong answer. Here is what to look for instead.

Practice5 min

What to expect when you hire a design studio

If you have never commissioned brand or web design before, here is how a good project actually runs, start to finish.

Business6 min

How much should a website cost?

The honest answer is that it depends, which helps nobody. So here is what actually drives the number, and what you get at each level.

Practice5 min

Freelancer or studio: how to choose

Both can be the right answer. It depends less on budget than on what you actually need, and how much of it you want to manage.

Systems8 min

Design the system, not the screen

A screen is a symptom. The thing you are really designing is the system behind it, and that is where the leverage lives.

Behaviour6 min

How colour and language make up your mind

People rarely decide the way they think they do. Colour, words and order quietly cast the vote before reason arrives to explain it.

Design4 min

Design that makes people feel

People forget what a product did and remember how it made them feel. That feeling is not decoration. It is the design.

Strategy7 min

Map the journey before you touch a screen

You cannot design a page until you know where the person came from, where they are trying to get to, and why it matters to them.

Design7 min

Why good interfaces never need explaining

If a button looks pressable, nobody has to be told. The best interfaces answer the question before it is asked.

Design5 min

Every choice you offer has a cost

Attention is finite. The more a screen asks someone to hold in mind, the worse it performs.

Design4 min

How to make information easier to remember

A phone number split into groups is easier to recall than the same digits in a row. Structure does the work.

Product4 min

Small targets cost you customers

The time it takes to hit something depends on its size and distance. One of the most reliable findings in design, and one of the most ignored.

Product4 min

No amount of polish fixes bad structure

Structure is the floor plan of a product. Get it wrong and no amount of visual craft will rescue it.

Practice4 min

Find usability problems before your customers do

A structured expert review will catch a great many problems in a morning, and make everything you learn afterwards more valuable.

Practice5 min

How to brief a design studio

The quality of the work you get back usually reflects the quality of the brief you send. Here is how to write one that helps.

Brand4 min

What a rebrand can and cannot fix

A rebrand can change how a business is seen. It cannot change what the business is. Knowing the difference saves a great deal of money.

Design4 min

Why the best websites say less

Adding more to a website feels like progress. Usually it is the opposite. Restraint is the harder and more valuable choice.

Business5 min

The real cost of a cheap website

A low price is easy to see. The costs that follow are not. They tend to arrive slowly, and cost more than the saving.

Leadership4 min

Design leadership without a full-time hire

Not every team needs a full-time head of design. Many need senior judgement, applied at the right moments. That is what fractional leadership offers.

Product4 min

When to build a design system, and when not to

A design system can bring order and speed. Built too early, it brings overhead and rigidity. Timing is most of the decision.

Business4 min

Measuring the return on design

Design is often treated as a matter of taste, and so goes unmeasured. Tied to the right outcomes, it is as accountable as anything else.

Practice4 min

Project or retainer

A project has a clear start and end. A retainer is a relationship. Choosing between them is really a question about what happens after launch.

Product5 min

Your product may need a review, not a redesign

When a product is underperforming, a redesign feels like the fix. Often a review would find the real problem for a fraction of the cost.

Brand4 min

Brand is what people say when you are not in the room

A brand is not a logo or a colour. It is the impression left behind. The useful question is whether that impression is deliberate.

UX Companion

The UX dictionary in your pocket.

UX Companion is our UX-dedicated app. A carefully written glossary of the tools, terms and theories every UX professional should know. Each entry pairs a plain-language definition with practical implications you can apply in your work.

Explore UX Companion