Studio diary Two project slots open for the Q1 2027 window — brand systems and website builds. Check availability
Small ValeDesign & build studio
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Empty studio meeting room with a long table, pale walls and tall windows

Small Vale — a four-person studio

For brands that have outgrown their first look.

We take one engagement at a time and stay with it through identity, website and launch — so the thing we designed is the thing that ships.

Start an enquiry See selected work
Discipline
Brand systems
Discipline
Website design & build
Discipline
Campaign craft
Working with
Founder & in-house teams

Approach

A studio small enough that the people who pitch are the people who make.

Most companies arrive here at the same moment: the first identity was made quickly, the site was built around it, and both now get in the way of a bigger story. We rebuild that foundation in one pass — not as a rebrand exercise, but as a working kit your team can keep using after we leave.

Read the engagements

One engagement at a time

We hold a single project in the studio so there is no queue behind your work and no account layer between you and the makers.

Design and build together

Interface and front-end sit in the same room. Decisions get tested in a browser the week they are made, not three months later.

Kit, not a cover

You finish with type, colour, components and written rules — the pieces your team needs to make the next thing without us.

Clear in a brief

Scope, sequence and the decisions we need from you are written down before work starts, and revisited at each handover.

Engagements

Four ways we are usually brought in.

Each lane lists what it covers, what you hold at the end, and the span we normally plan for. Lanes combine — most companies take brand and website together.

01

Brand system

A full look rebuilt from the proposition outward: wordmark, type scale, colour roles, photographic direction and the written rules that keep it consistent once your team takes over.

Covers
Positioning read, wordmark, type & colour system, photo direction, usage rules
You receive
Logo files, a type and colour sheet, templates, and a short written standard
Typical span
Six to eight weeks
02

Website design & build

Structure first, then interface, then a hand-built front end. We design the page types your business actually sells through and leave your editors able to change copy without breaking layout.

Covers
Sitemap, page-type design, component library, responsive build, editor handover
You receive
A live site, source files, component documentation, and a recorded walkthrough
Typical span
Eight to twelve weeks
03

Campaign craft

A single idea carried properly across the few places it will actually run — launch pages, email, print and paid cutdowns — made from your brand kit rather than around it.

Covers
Concept routes, art direction, launch page, email set, print and paid artwork
You receive
Final artwork in required formats plus editable masters
Typical span
Four to six weeks
04

Growth retainer

For teams who have the foundation and need steady hands on it: a fixed block of studio days each month spent on new pages, campaign work and keeping the system tidy as it grows.

Covers
Monthly studio days, new page types, component additions, design review
You receive
A shared plan, a monthly written summary, and an updated component set
Typical span
Rolling, three-month minimum

Selected work

Three recent engagements, and what shipped.

Illustrative studio projects, written the way we would brief them internally: the problem on arrival, and the work that left the building.

Printed brand guideline sheets and colour swatches arranged on a pale desk

Brand system · Speciality food producer

Marrow & Reed

Six product lines had each been designed by a different hand, so a shelf of their jars read as six companies. We built one system flexible enough to carry a growing range without a redesign each time.

  • Wordmark and a two-weight type scale
  • Label system covering six ranges plus seasonal runs
  • Photography direction and a written usage standard
Laptop on a desk showing a reporting dashboard beside a notebook and pen

Website design & build · B2B services

Thorne Field Partners

Their site explained the firm but never the work, so every enquiry started from zero. We restructured it around the five service questions buyers actually ask and rebuilt the front end around editable page types.

  • Sitemap reduced from thirty-one pages to nine page types
  • Component library with editor documentation
  • Hand-built responsive front end and handover session
Campaign planning wall covered in sticky notes beside a laptop and coffee cup

Campaign craft · Independent bookshop group

Quarter Press Autumn Season

A season of twelve events needed to feel like one programme across four shop windows, a mailing list and a single landing page — built entirely from the kit we had made for them the year before.

  • One concept route carried across print and screen
  • Window and poster artwork for four locations
  • Season landing page and a four-part email set

How we work

Four steps, and what we need from you at each one.

The sequence is the same whether the engagement is six weeks or twelve. Knowing your part in advance is usually what keeps a project on its dates.

01

Read the brief

A first conversation and a written scope: what the work includes, the sequence, the dates and the price. Nothing starts until that document is agreed.

Your partOne call, and whoever signs off reading the scope.

02

Diagnose

We go through what exists — the current site, the existing files, how your team makes things day to day — and come back with the few decisions the project actually rests on.

Your partAccess to current files, and an hour with the people who use them.

03

Make

Design and build run together in weekly blocks. You see real work each week in a browser, and feedback is gathered in one pass per block rather than in a drip.

Your partOne consolidated round of feedback per week.

04

Hand over

Launch, then a working handover: files, written rules, a walkthrough for your team, and four weeks of availability afterwards for the questions that only appear in use.

Your partTwo hours for the walkthrough with whoever maintains the work.

Four colleagues gathered around a table reviewing printed layouts together

The studio

Four people, one room, no handoffs.

Small Vale is two designers, a front-end developer and a writer. We work a four-day studio week with Fridays kept clear for our own research, which is also why we only hold one engagement at a time.

Everything we send you is made in-house. If the work needs a discipline we do not have — motion, photography, illustration — we say so early and bring in someone we have worked with before, in your name and at their rate.

Questions

Before you write to us.

The six things companies ask in a first call, answered here so the call can be about your work instead.

What is your minimum engagement?
A four-week project. Anything shorter tends to be a favour rather than a piece of work, and we would rather point you to someone set up for quick turnarounds than take it on badly.
How do you price — fixed fee or day rate?
Projects are quoted as a fixed fee against a written scope, so you are not exposed to our estimating. Retainers are a fixed block of studio days per month. Anything genuinely unknowable at the start is called out separately in the scope as a named decision rather than hidden in a contingency.
When could you start?
Because we hold one engagement at a time, start dates follow the studio diary at the top of this page rather than a sales calendar. From a first conversation, scoping usually takes two weeks before work begins — so the sooner you write, the more of the window you can use.
We already have an in-house team. How does that work?
Well, usually — it is most of what we do. Your team keeps ownership and day-to-day output; we build the foundation and the documentation around it, then train them on it at handover. We will not quietly take over work your team should keep.
Who actually does the work?
The four of us. There is no account manager, no junior layer and no outsourcing without telling you first. The people in your first call are the people in the files.
What happens after launch?
Four weeks of included availability for questions and small fixes, then you either carry it yourself with the documentation we leave, or move onto a retainer. We do not make the handover deliberately difficult to create a dependency.

Start an enquiry

Tell us what you are trying to fix.

A few lines is plenty for a first message. If it is a fit, we will reply with questions and a time to talk; if it is not, we will say so and suggest where else to look.

  • Read by one of the four of us, not a sales inbox
  • A reply within two working days, either way
  • No scope or price quoted before we have talked

We use what you send only to answer your enquiry.