Web design FAQ

A template subscription rents you a layout that thousands of other sites share. A designed website is planned around your organisation: its pages follow how your customers decide, and its words answer the searches they make. The subscription is cheaper to start, but you pay for as long as the site exists and never own what you have built.

You pay in the currency of your quote, whether that is pounds, dollars or rand. How the total is split, and when each part falls due, is agreed with you in writing before any work starts, so nothing arrives as a surprise halfway through. If your organisation needs a purchase order or a supplier form first, tell us at the quote stage.

Longer than a template and shorter than most people fear. The real variables are the number of pages, whether the words and photographs are ready, and how many special features the site needs. Late content is the most common cause of delay on any web project. Your quote sets out the timing stage by stage, so you know what to expect.

Often, yes. Put the date in your first message, whether it is a tender closing, a launch or an event, and we will say honestly whether it can be met before you commit to anything. If it cannot, we suggest what could be ready in time and what could follow afterwards.

No. Projects run by email, video call and shared files, so where you are makes no difference to how the work goes. Most design decisions are easier with the work in front of you anyway, on your own screen and in your own time, than around a table in a meeting room.

It is a hidden address where your new website runs exactly as it will after launch, before anyone else can see it. You open it on your phone, tablet and laptop, click through every page and send us anything you want changed. The site only goes public once you are happy with what you have seen.

The people doing the design work. You will not be passed between an account manager, a designer and a developer who never speak to each other. Questions go to the team working on your project and the answers come straight back from them, which saves time and stops messages getting lost along the way.

Yes. Changes are part of every project, and there are set points where you review the work and send your notes before the next stage starts. Collect comments from everyone who needs a say and send them together, because conflicting notes from different people slow everything down.

Ask, and we will quote it the same way as the original work. New pages, a second brochure or an extra slide layout all start from the files and rules you already have, so they match without anyone redesigning the basics. Because you own those files, you are equally free to take the work to someone else.

You receive the finished artwork and the source files it was made from. That means a logo in versions for screen and for print, print-ready files with bleed for anything printed and, for a website, the site, its files and a domain registered in your name. Everything is organised so a printer, a developer or a new designer can find what they need.

A print-ready file can go to a printer without changes. That means the right page size plus bleed, the extra margin of artwork trimmed off so colour runs to the edge. It also means images at a high enough resolution, fonts embedded and colours set up in CMYK for the paper being used. Printers delay or reject files that miss any of these.

Closely, but never exactly. Screens mix light while presses mix ink, so some bright screen colours cannot be printed, and every paper takes ink a little differently. We set your colours up for print, with separate values for coated and uncoated stock where needed. A printed proof is always worth checking before a large run.

Both introduce your organisation to buyers. A company profile is the longer document, common in South Africa and often attached to tenders, covering your history, services, people and projects. A capability statement is the short American equivalent, built for government buyers who want your core skills, past performance and registration codes at a glance.

It can help, but it cannot win on its own. Evaluators score the bid against set criteria, and the profile is where they check that you are real, capable and properly registered. A clear, well-organised tender profile makes those checks quick and leaves a good impression, while a muddled one makes the evaluator work harder than they would like.

Not well. Each app handles fonts, master slides and animation differently, so a template converted from one to another usually loses its layouts. Google Slides, for example, can only use fonts from its own library. We build the template in the app your team presents from, and if people use more than one, we build a version for each.

Use the office for the market you are selling into, because that is where the buyers are, and the paper sizes, search terms and prices need to suit them. If the currency you pay in differs from the market you sell to, say so. The quote can be written in whichever of pounds, dollars or rand suits your accounts.

No, and be wary of anyone who does. Nobody outside Google controls its results. What we control is how the site is built: fast pages, a clean structure, a sitemap, clear titles and descriptions, and words that answer what people actually search for. Google’s own starter guide explains why those things matter.