The schedule
How a project runs
Here's how your project will run and where I'll need you along the way. There are four points where I stop and ask you to sign something off. Each one takes you a few minutes and saves a much slower conversation later, and nothing moves to the next stage until the current one is approved.
Planning sessionStart
Pre-productionYour pace
Design1 week
Build2–3 weeks
Load-in1–2 days
Dress rehearsal1 week
Opening nightLive
Planning session
It starts with a paid planning session
Before anything is designed or quoted, we sit down together and talk about your business, your audience and how work actually reaches you. You come away with a written plan, and the build quote is worked out from that plan rather than plucked from the air.
The session is $400, paid up front, and it comes off the build if you go ahead.
Goals: what a visitor should do, and what “working” looks like.
Pages: the sitemap and what goes on each page.
Features: events, newsletter, galleries, forms, rosters, whatever the job needs.
Content list: exactly what I'll need from you, in what format and by when.
The plan: a written roadmap that's yours to keep whether or not you go ahead.
The stages
Pre-production
Your pace
Before anything starts I need your content: words, images, logos and links. You'll get a specific list of what's needed and in what format, plus a Dropbox folder to drop it into, and you won't need a Dropbox account of your own. I don't start the build until it's all in, because a build that starts half-fed stalls and drifts. Once everything has arrived you go into the next available build slot, so the start date is in your hands.
Sign-off 1: the plan, signed with the quote
Design
1 week
I take your content and the sites you like and agree the look with you before building anything: colours, type, photography and the overall direction, written down in one short document. Then I build your homepage in full on a private link. It's the real thing with your words and photos, working on a phone, so you can judge it properly.
Sign-offs 2 and 3: the look, then the homepage
Build
2–3 weeks
Every other page, built in the style you've approved. Forms, galleries and events are tested on real phones and tablets, and you'll get a progress email every week so you always know where things are.
Load-in
1–2 days
The site moves from the development server to its permanent home with its domain, security certificate, email delivery, backups and search engine setup. None of it is visible, but it's what keeps enquiries arriving and the site found.
Dress rehearsal
1 week
Final testing on the live server before anyone sees it: links, forms, speed, spelling and every page on a phone. Then it's over to you for a proper look.
Sign-off 4: the finished site
Opening night
Live
Your site goes live and I watch it while it does. Then there are thirty days of included support for fixes, tweaks and questions, and I check in at 30 and 90 days to see how it's going.
Along the way
What I need from you along the way
One person to approve: gather the views internally by all means, then send them to me as one voice.
Feedback within three business days, so the project keeps moving.
Changes in one email: a round of revisions is a single email with everything you need changed. Three rounds are included across the whole project.
Next step
Talk to me about your project
If this sounds like the way you'd like to work, tell me a little about what you do and I'll get back to you to set up a short call.
Website projects generally start at $2,500 and begin with a paid planning session.