My Web Design Process.

1. Discovery & Research

I start every project with a real conversation, not a questionnaire. The first call is usually 30 to 45 minutes and the goal is simple: figure out what the site needs to do for the business. Is this for converting strangers into leads? Is it a digital business card? Is it replacing something the client already hates?

From there I poke around at three or four competitor sites and a few sites the client already likes (they almost always have a Pinterest board or a screenshot folder). I'm not copying them. I'm trying to understand the visual neighborhood the client expects to live in. If every competitor is using clean serif type and they ask me for something playful and bright, that is a useful conversation to have on day one instead of week six.

I put together a small moodboard, write up scope and a rough timeline, and send a fixed quote. If the scope shifts later I price the change separately. Trying to absorb scope creep silently has bitten me enough times that I just don't anymore.

2. Content Gathering & Creation

Content is the part of every project that takes longer than anyone expects, mine included. I push for it early because designing around lorem ipsum is the fastest way to design something that breaks the moment real copy arrives.

I start by reading whatever already exists: the old site, brochures, internal docs. Most of it gets cut. What's left gets reworked, and the gaps become a short writing list I send back to the client. If they don't have time to write, I draft it and they edit. That's almost always faster than waiting for them to start from a blank page.

Photography and video, if the project needs them, get scheduled here too. I shoot a lot of my own client work, so I usually slot a half-day on site early enough that the assets are in hand before I start designing.

3. Wireframes & Sitemap

Before I open a design tool I sketch out the sitemap. It's usually a one-page diagram in Figma showing every page on the site and how they link together. If a page doesn't have a clear job, it doesn't make the cut.

Then I do low-fidelity wireframes for the templates that matter: home, about, services, a typical blog post, and any unusual page types. These are intentionally ugly. Black and white, no fonts decided, no colors. The goal is to argue about what goes where before anyone has feelings about a button shade. Ninety percent of the layout decisions get locked in here, which makes the design step move fast.

4. Design

If the client has a brand guide, I work inside it. If they don't, I propose a small one: two or three colors, a heading and body typeface, and a couple of UI patterns (button styles, form fields, card layouts). I'd rather over-define this early than improvise it across 12 templates and end up with three different shades of blue.

Then I design the same templates I wireframed, in high fidelity. I usually do the home page first because it absorbs most of the design language, then move to the simpler pages. I share the work via a Figma link as I go rather than holding a single big reveal at the end. Smaller, more frequent feedback rounds catch problems while they're still cheap to fix.

Icons, illustrations, animations: I make as many as the budget allows and use stock or open libraries for the rest. I'm a developer who designs, not the other way around, so I am realistic about where my time pays off.

5. Review & Approval

Once the high-fidelity designs are signed off, I build the site. Most of my client work is on Statamic now, with some legacy Craft CMS projects in the mix. I deploy a staging URL early and keep pushing to it, so the client sees the real thing rendering on real devices instead of imagining how a Figma frame translates.

Pre-launch I do the unglamorous checks: every form actually sends, every link goes somewhere, the favicon exists, the 404 page renders, the sitemap is reachable, and Lighthouse scores are where I want them. I run the site on a phone with the dev tools throttled to slow 3G to make sure the hero isn't a 12MB video. Boring stuff that ships a site that doesn't embarrass anyone in week one.

Then it launches. I stick around for a couple of weeks of small tweaks because there's always something the client notices once they're using the site daily, and that follow-up window is part of the engagement. After that, I hand over the keys and a short Loom video walking through how to update content.