Every project we take on is one of three things, or two of them together: a brand, a website, or a tool. Brand is the identity and the system that carries it. Web is the site, from the structure of what an organization has to say through to the pages that say it. Tools are the things people open on a Tuesday: maps, platforms, dashboards, the software an organization runs on.
Whatever we make, it goes through the same three stages. Structure comes first: the information architecture, the content model, the data model, the decisions about what to build and what to leave alone. Then design, then build. Where most studios write strategy, we write structure. That is deliberate. The sense-making is the work, and the site or the tool is how it shows.
The same team carries a project through all three stages, so nothing is designed that can't be built and nothing is built that wasn't designed. The plot below lays out every capability by what it makes and where in the motion it sits. Each one opens onto a page of its own.
We turn a brand into a design system that a team can build with, defining colour scales, type, spacing and components closely enough to code from. The same system runs the website and the CMS blocks editors publish with, and it can carry into document templates and print.
We help organizations decide what to build, what to consolidate and what to leave alone before any design starts, and we write down the reasoning so the plan still makes sense months later.
We design brand identities for organizations whose brand no longer reflects the work they do. We start with what the organization is and who needs to understand it, and we often go on to build the website the new identity lives on.
We design the logo, colour and type of a brand as one system, then mock it up on real applications, from business cards to web pages, before we hand it over.
We design presentation systems, with templates, layouts and chart styles, so a team can build clear decks and reports without a designer, in PowerPoint, Google Slides or Keynote.
We design annual reports and other publications for print and screen from the same content, and manage production through to the final file.
We produce campaigns across every place they need to run, from an animated commercial to billboards, bus shelters and online video, with each piece drawn from the same artwork.
We carry brand identities into the places people meet them, from the website to document templates and print, whether we designed the identity or another studio did.
We organize sites that have layered content and several audiences, settling the sitemap, navigation, naming and page hierarchy before design starts so each audience can find what it came for.
Before design starts, we work out what types of content an organization has, how they relate and who looks after them. Pages are then built from that structure, so a site can keep growing for years without a rebuild.
We go through the content a site already has, decide what to keep, merge, rewrite or retire, and plan who owns each page and when it gets reviewed. When the words need a professional writer, we bring in partners who are writers first.
We design websites for organizations that have outgrown their current site or whose site no longer reflects the quality of their work. We work out the content structure first, and the people who draw the pages are the people who build them.
We design annual reports, impact reports and other long reading for the web, using typography, pacing and media to carry a reader through the material. Recent work includes Haskayne School of Business's annual reports and Calgary Municipal Land Corporation's strategic plan impact report.
We design and build to WCAG 2.2 at level AA from the first layout, and we test with a keyboard, a screen reader and automated checks before anything launches.
We build websites to be looked after for years, with typed and tested code over structured content, and a dependency list short enough that we are happy to maintain it ourselves.
We build content management on Sanity, with structured content, an editing Studio shaped around how your team works and a front end built to follow the design. Where Payload or Prismic suits a project better, we use those.
We build Shopify storefronts with a custom Next.js front end and a content layer in Sanity, so the store carries the brand and the client's team can publish without waiting on a developer. For Milk Jar Candle Co. that included the Scent Seer, which matches customers to candles by scent.
We set a performance budget at the wireframe stage and check the work against it as the site is built. Pages stay static where they can, images are sized to fit, and we measure on real phones over real connections.
We plan the data models, permissions, integrations and hosting behind a platform around the work it has to carry, including the work it will take on after launch. We keep the result plain enough that any developer who comes after us can find their way around.
We work out the entities, relationships and rules behind a workflow tool before we design its screens, pinning down what a lesson, a school or a subscription is. The screens then follow the structure, and the tool matches how the organization already works.
We build multilingual and multi-region websites with the locales and routing in place before the second language or region arrives, so adding one later means entering content. Wee Wild Ones launched in English with French already set up.
We design dashboards, admin screens and web applications around the tasks people repeat every day, with clear states, plain feedback and as much information on screen as the work needs.
We design how interfaces move and respond, so each movement tells people what just happened, what is loading or what they can do next. We prototype in code, where timing and easing can be tried on a real screen.
We design and build touchscreen interfaces for sales centres and other public spaces, with large touch targets, flows that forgive a wrong turn, and sessions that reset for each new visitor.
We build interactive maps for places with a story to tell, from 3D districts to self-guided art tours, on vector tiles and MapLibre, with a content model the client's team edits themselves.
We build custom platforms and web applications, such as learning platforms, resource hubs and member areas, when a team's workflow is too specific for off-the-shelf software. Each one is designed around the work people do in it and built so the team can run it themselves.
We design and build dashboards and internal tools that put a team's data, and the actions that go with it, on one screen. For Classroom Champions that meant a teacher dashboard where lessons, units and each class's progress can be read at a glance.
We build partner portals, gated resource hubs and member areas, with access control planned from the start and the same design care inside the login as outside it. For Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, partner packages replaced the USB drives they used to hand out.
We build custom inputs, previews and workflows into the CMS, usually Sanity, for the people who edit a site every day. That includes form builders, map editors and theming systems that editors control.
What an organization has, how it is shaped, how it is found. Information architecture, content models, data models, design systems, and the strategy that decides what gets built at all. Most of the clarity a project ends up with comes from here, so it is where we start.
Identity, interfaces, pages, and publications, designed against the structure rather than on top of it. The system that governs the website governs the deck and the report, and every screen is drawn at the size it will be read.
Websites, headless CMS, e-commerce, maps, platforms, dashboards, portals, and print, built by the people who structured and designed them. Production first: made to keep, not to throw away.
If you have a brand, a website, or a tool in mind, or you are not yet sure which, write to us. Tell us about the organization and the problem, and we'll come back with questions and a first take.