From the first call to your site going live.
One person, start to finish. No account manager, no design lead, no junior engineer doing the work while someone else takes the call. The upside is speed and consistency. The tradeoff is honesty about capacity — I only take on the projects I can actually ship.
Discovery
A 45–60 minute conversation. We figure out who the site is for, what belief it needs to produce in the first 30 seconds, and what counts as success — in numbers, not adjectives. Recorded with Fathom if you're comfortable, notes shared after. Nothing is built yet. Just the picture of what you're actually trying to do.
Scope lock
I write a plain-language scope covering what we're building, what we're not, success metrics, timeline, and price. You read it, ask questions, sign it. No design work starts until this is agreed in writing. If something material changes later, we revisit the scope before I touch the code — never 'while you're in there.'
Design direction
Two to three distinct visual directions, each with typography, palette, motion language, and reference sites. You pick one. Typography and palette lock here, not during the build. If nothing lands, we reset with new references — but we make a clean choice before any component is written.
Content & assets
Copy, photography, logos, integration credentials, legal. If you need a shoot, we schedule it inside this phase so the photos are ready when the build reaches them. Copy can be client-led, collaborative, or fully handled by me — decided at scope lock.
Build
Component by component, mobile-first, always on a preview URL you can see live. No 'big reveal at the end.' Weekly check-ins by default, faster when it matters. Screenshots after every visual change so we catch drift early. Motion layered in after layout is stable.
Security & performance
Not an upsell — part of the price. Lighthouse 90+ on mobile and desktop, CSP headers, HTTPS with HSTS, server-side validation, rate limiting, dependency audit, cookie consent wired correctly. The floor, not the ceiling.
Pre-launch & launch
Analytics, Search Console, Business Profile, sitemap, Open Graph, custom 404/500, uptime monitor. Cross-browser, real-phone test. Nothing launches until every box is ticked. DNS moves are planned on paper first — too easy to break email by accident.
Handoff
The site is yours. A live CMS walkthrough (recorded), a plain-language maintenance guide, and full ownership transfer: domain, Google accounts, GitHub repo. Credentials via 1Password, never email. About four weeks in, we check in — you add a piece of content yourself while I watch. If it takes more than ten minutes, the CMS isn't easy enough and I refactor.
How I work with photography.
Photography is half of what MB Studio does. For hospitality, service, and anyone whose product is a room, a plate, or a person, good photos matter more than clever code.
before
A short brief, a shot list, and usually a 15-minute walkthrough of the space a day or two before — scouting light and planning angles.
on the shoot
Natural light first. Canon 3000D, prime lenses, Lightroom. People and gesture over posed hero compositions. Default brief when nothing more specific is agreed: a memory, not a commercial.
after
Cull and develop in Lightroom within seven days. Two export passes: web-ready (sRGB, optimized) for the site; print-ready (Adobe RGB, full resolution) for menus, posters, press. Delivered via Dropbox or WeTransfer, organized into labeled sets. Raw files archived for 12 months, available on request.
combined with a site
Same trip, one invoice, photos flow straight into the build without a re-handoff. Faster and cheaper than treating the site and the shoot as two separate engagements. The projects labelled "web + photo" in my work are all built that way.
Async by default — email and WhatsApp, one thread per project. Sync when it matters, via Calendly. Same business day for anything blocking; 24–48 hours for everything else.
Your domain, your code, your content, your accounts (Search Console, Business Profile, Analytics). Nothing is rented or locked. If you ever want to move, everything you need is already in your hands.