Services / Web design
A website that looks like the brand and earns its keep.earns its keep.
Web design in Cleveland, Ohio, for businesses whose site has one job: move someone a step closer to hiring you, booking you or buying from you. Designed and built by the same person, with the forms, email, store and analytics wired in — not bolted on.
01 What lands in the hand-off
Launch day is the start, not the finish line.finish line.
A site is a living thing. What you get is built so it can keep changing after I have stepped away — and everything is in your name, not mine.
- 01
The site
- Every page, designed and built
- Responsive from phone to wide desktop
- Changes one message away: submit the update, it is usually live the same day
- Real content in place, not lorem ipsum
- Fast: images, fonts and scripts all tuned
- 02
The plumbing
- Contact and booking forms that land in your inbox
- Email capture and automation
- E-commerce or print-on-demand where it fits
- Analytics and conversion tracking
- SEO structure: titles, schema, sitemap, redirects
- 03
The keys
- Everything in your accounts, not mine
- Domain, hosting and DNS set up and documented
- How to submit a change, and what happens when you do
- A hand-off call, recorded
- 04
The afterwards
- Seasonal pages and campaigns as the calendar turns
- New sections without a rebuild
- The option of a standing arrangement
02 One site, start to finish
Northgrain: a renovator's site that opens on the work.the work.
Step 1 · The brief
Who do you trust in your house for three months?
Every site starts with the same question wearing a different costume: what does your audience need to see to take the next step, and how do we put exactly that in front of them without making them hunt? For a renovator the answer is that question above, and no services list settles it. So the site had to open on finished rooms, get to a way of starting a conversation fast, and never make anyone hunt for what Northgrain actually does.
Step 2 · Structure
The work first. Everything else after.
Every project gets its own page with before-and-during photography. The process is laid out in four plain steps. The two services are named, not buried. And a way to get in touch stays within reach the whole way down, because the site's only job is the first conversation.
Step 3 · The whole page
Hero, about, services, work, proof, process, FAQ.
One page, top to bottom, in the order a client actually lives through the decision. Nothing on it is decoration; every section either shows the work, explains how it goes, or answers the question that would otherwise stop someone getting in touch.
Step 4 · After launch
Live the same week. Updated the same day.
The site went live with the identity it was designed alongside, and the launch was cut for social the same week. Since then James submits changes as they come up — a new project, a photo, a line of copy — and they are usually live that day. That is the hand-off on a custom site: nobody at Northgrain has to learn a page builder to keep it current.
03 More web work
A golf club, a farm, a one-man band and a software company.a software company.
04 In their words
“I could not be happier with the outcome. My website, logo and marketing ads are unique and appealing. He is now my go-to for anything design related!”
“DS Design Co. took the time to understand our brand goal, the ethos behind it, and created a website to capture exactly what we needed. The process was smooth, easy to follow, and well guided.”
“Danny’s work is top notch. His creativity and attention to detail capture designs that have consistently projected our vision.”
05 Web design questions
What people ask before they commit.commit.
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What do you build websites in?
Custom code, most of the time. It gives me the most room to build exactly what you have pictured, and the result is faster and cleaner than a page builder can manage. If you would rather have the site in Webflow, Wix Studio or WordPress so your team can edit it in a visual editor, that is an option; it usually costs more, because it takes longer to build. The default is a custom site where any change is one message away.
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Can we make changes after launch?
Yes, and nobody on your side has to learn a page builder to do it. Submit the change and it is usually live the same day; Northgrain has run that way since the site launched. Quick updates turn around quickly, and anything larger is scoped like new work. If your team genuinely needs to edit pages hands-on, we can build on a platform that allows it, and we decide that at the start.
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Do you do e-commerce?
Yes. Galen Marten’s merch store runs on Printful, so an order prints and ships without him holding stock. Sometimes the right answer is not a store on the site at all: Mapleside sells tickets through a dedicated ticketing portal, and the site’s job is to hand people to it cleanly. What you sell and how much of it decides the approach, and that gets sorted before anything gets designed.
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What about email?
Capture and automation are wired in when they earn their place. Spencer K. Prescott’s site hands over a free first chapter on the spot and the list does the selling from there; Galen’s mailing list runs on Resend from the same place the site lives.
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Is SEO included?
The structural part always is: titles and descriptions on every page, schema markup, a sitemap, redirects from the old site so nothing you had ranking gets lost, and analytics so you can see what is working. Ongoing content and link work is a separate, longer conversation.
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How long does a site take, and what does it cost?
Both are scoped once we have talked, because a three-page launch site and a twenty-page experience system are very different jobs. Before design starts you will have a written scope, a fixed price and a timeline you can plan around.
06 Additional services
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Branding
Identity systems built to survive a printer, a sign shop and a decade.
Explore brandingExplore branding -
Motion graphics
The complicated thing, explained in thirty seconds and cut for every placement.
Explore motion graphicsExplore motion graphics
07 Next step
Have a project in mind?mind?
Tell me what you're building and where it's getting stuck. I'll reply personally, usually within a day or two, with a straight answer on fit, timeline and budget.