Engagements
Five fixed shapes of engagement, each with a number on it, so you can work out whether this fits before you write. Same eight stages as everything in the catalogue, run on your product instead of mine.
Why there are numbers on this page
Design is usually quoted after a call whose real purpose is to find out whether you can afford one. The numbers are here instead — indicative, honest, and enough to decide on in private. If the range doesn't work, you have lost a minute rather than a fortnight.
Engagement 01 of 05
$1,499, fixedOne week · stages 01–06
One week, one problem, taken through to wireframes.
What lands
The brief as it was actually answered, the comparative sweep, the gap named, and wireframes with every state drawn — empty, loading, error, full.
Right for you when
There is one argument to settle and a date that will not move.
Engagement 02 of 05
from $5,200Four to eight weeks · all eight stages
Four to eight weeks. The full eight-stage process, end to end.
What lands
Every stage, written up as it is made, through to a design system — and the coded front end where that is the right ending.
Right for you when
The product is the business, and the design has to hold for the next two years of it.
Engagement 03 of 05
from $3,500Three to five weeks · stage 07
Tokens through components to documentation your team can actually use.
What lands
Tokens, components and patterns, named consistently, plus the documentation that makes the tenth screen match the first.
Right for you when
You have designers and screens already, and no two of them quite agree.
Engagement 04 of 05
POAScoped per build · stages 07–08
The design, plus the coded implementation. No handoff translation.
What lands
The drawing and the build, one to one — components, states and behaviour, in the framework your team already ships.
Right for you when
The last handoff lost a week to translation and you would rather not repeat it.
Engagement 05 of 05
from $980/moMonthly, rolling · any stage
Monthly retainer. Design review and direction for a team that has designers but needs a senior read.
What lands
A standing review on the work in flight, with the reasoning written down so it is still useful after the call ends.
Right for you when
You have the people. What is missing is a second opinion that has done this before.
What every engagement runs through
01
Understand
The brief, the business, the constraints.
02
Map landscape
Comparative analysis — what exists, what works.
03
Gap analysis
What's missing between where they are and where they need to be.
04
User profiling
Audiences, jobs to be done, usage patterns.
05
Information architecture
Structure, navigation, hierarchy.
06
Wireframes
Flows, layouts, states.
07
Design system
Tokens, components, patterns.
08
Build-ready front end
The handoff that doesn't need translating.
What each stage is for — or open any item in the catalogue, where these eight stages are written up against work that shipped.
Every engagement has a fixed shape and a number attached, so the first email can be about your product rather than about whether any of this is affordable. Nobody has to sit through a call to find out the range.
Nothing is invented per client. The method that made everything in the catalogue is the method that runs on your work, which is the reason it can be quoted at a fixed shape at all.
You keep the written record — the questions asked, the options rejected, the decision and why it went that way — so your team can defend and extend the design long after the engagement closes.
Quoted in USD for consistency with the catalogue. South African clients can be invoiced in ZAR at the rate agreed on the day — engagements are negotiated one at a time, so a per-client currency is practical here in a way it is not for products.
Start a conversation
What it is, when it has to exist, and roughly what you've set aside for it. Three sentences is plenty to work out whether this is a fit. You'll get a written reply within two working days — from a person who has read it.
If this isn't the moment