I design websites around your visitors and your goals instead of a template. Layout, hierarchy, typography, and the path from landing page to enquiry are all worked out before any code is written.
Most of website design is deciding what a visitor sees first, what they understand in the first few seconds, and what they do next. I start every design by working out who lands on the page and what they came for, then build the layout around that.
Because I also build what I design, the design and technical decisions get made together. Nothing gets lost between two people, and I can tell you early when an idea will be expensive to build or slow on a phone, while it's still cheap to change. On bigger projects I'm happy to work alongside a dedicated designer or an agency's design team and handle the build.
How a design project runs
Structure comes first. Before anything visual, we work out which pages the site needs, what each one is for, and what a visitor should do once they get there. Most sites that feel confusing are badly organized rather than badly styled, and polish won't fix that.
Then comes the layout, designed for phones first because that's where most local traffic comes from, and scaled up for tablets and desktops. You see the design and approve it before any production code is written, because changing a layout at that stage is cheap and changing a built site isn't. Once it's approved, I build it as designed.
What the design covers
Every page gets one clear job. Layouts are designed mobile-first, with a consistent type scale, colour system, and spacing so the whole site looks planned. Calls to action go where people are ready to use them, and contrast and focus states meet accessibility standards, which helps every visitor.
If you already have branding, I design within it. If you don't, I'll put together a simple visual system you can use everywhere else too.
Design that survives real content
A mockup always looks good with placeholder text. The test is what happens when a service description runs three lines longer than planned, or someone uploads a photo in the wrong shape. I design templates around the content you'll publish, and build them so you can edit it yourself without breaking the layout. On His Work My Hands Chiropractic, every section of a custom WordPress theme is managed through labelled fields in the dashboard instead of a page builder.
Design choices also decide how fast a site loads. Oversized hero images, too many web fonts, and heavy animation add up quickly on a phone, so I make those trade-offs while designing and the finished site still loads quickly.
Redesigning an existing site
Not every tired website needs a rebuild. If the site underneath is sound and fast, a design refresh is often better value. If it's slow, doesn't work properly on phones, or is stuck on a platform it has outgrown, rebuilding usually costs less over a few years than patching it again and again. I'll look at what you have and tell you which one you need. If you're on a hosted builder, outgrown Wix or Squarespace covers when moving is worth it.
I'm a web designer in Belleville and work with businesses in Kingston, Whitby, Durham Region, and the GTA, each with its own page of local details. If budget is the first question, what a website costs explains what moves the price.
