Meridian Studio
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Approach

How the work actually gets made.

Every engagement runs through the same four phases, whatever its size. A two-week sprint and a year-long retainer differ in scale, not in shape. What follows is what we will actually do, in what order, and what you will be holding at the end of each part.

  1. Orientation

    90 min – 2 weeks

    Every engagement starts with a Discovery Session. You describe the problem in your words; we say it back in ours until the description is one we both recognise. Most of this phase is listening — to you, to your team, and to the decks, analytics and sales calls that tend to disagree with each other.

    • A ninety-minute working session with both founders
    • Interviews with the people who will live with the outcome
    • A read of the site, the deck, the product and recent sales calls

    You leave with

    A written statement of the problem, agreed before any design work begins.

  2. Definition

    1–2 weeks

    Positioning, audience and proof get resolved here — which makes this the least comfortable phase, because it is the one where things are ruled out. Nothing is drawn yet. If the argument is wrong, drawing it beautifully only makes it more expensive to change.

    • Positioning options argued rather than presented
    • The audience named specifically enough to exclude someone
    • The proof that makes the claim credible to a sceptic
    • One sentence the whole company can repeat without wincing

    You leave with

    A position you can defend, and a written rationale for why the alternatives were set aside.

  3. Expression

    2–8 weeks

    Only now does anything get drawn. The work is built outward from the position rather than toward a moodboard, which is why direction tends to settle in one review instead of three rounds of options nobody can choose between.

    • Direction set in a single review, not three rounds of options
    • Design built as a system from the first screen, not retrofitted into one
    • Weekly working reviews rather than staged presentations
    • Build and handover in WordPress where the work is digital

    You leave with

    The work itself, and a system it belongs to.

  4. Handover

    1 week, then on call

    The engagement ends when your team can run the work without us. That is a real test, not a formality — so handover is a phase with its own week, not a folder sent on the last afternoon.

    • Written guidelines covering the decisions, not just the files
    • A working session with the team who will actually use it
    • Source files and components handed over in full
    • Thirty days of questions answered at no charge

    You leave with

    Everything, including the reasoning.

What we need from you

The half of this that is yours.

Engagements that go wrong go wrong on the client side more often than the studio side, and almost always for the same four reasons. None of them is budget. We would rather say so now than discover it in week five.

  1. A decision-maker in the room

    Someone who can say yes, and mean it, in the review itself. Work that has to be relayed to an absent approver loses a week each time and arrives back softened.

  2. Honest material

    The analytics, the churn, the objections your sales team hears and would rather not put in a deck. We have never once been shocked by it, and it is usually where the actual problem is.

  3. Time in the diary

    Roughly three hours a week from two or three people. Less than that and the timeline stretches — the scope does not shrink, which is the more expensive outcome.

  4. A tolerance for being disagreed with

    We will occasionally tell you that what you asked for is not what you need. That conversation is not friction around the service. It is the service.

Operating rhythm

How the weeks actually run.

The phases describe the shape of an engagement. This is the part nobody puts in a proposal — the working facts you would otherwise find out in week three.

  • Who is in the room

    Both founders, on every engagement, from the first call to the last. There is no account layer between you and the people doing the work, and nothing is handed down to a junior once the contract is signed.

  • Cadence

    One working review a week, forty-five minutes, the same slot each time. Written notes follow within a day so decisions are recorded rather than remembered.

  • Decisions

    We bring a recommendation, not a menu of options for you to arbitrate. You can overrule it — and we will tell you plainly if we think you are wrong before we go and do it well anyway.

  • Concurrency

    Two engagements at a time, never more. That is the whole reason the calendar looks the way it does, and the reason your week does not get absorbed by somebody else’s deadline.

  • Where

    Remote by default, because it is faster and you are not paying for travel. In the studio or at your office when the session genuinely earns the day.

  • Revisions

    Unlimited within a phase and none after it closes. Phases close by agreement, not by date, so nothing is ever declared finished over your objection.

Start here

Bring us the problem you can’t quite name yet.

A Discovery Session is ninety minutes with both founders. We work through what you’re actually trying to build, and you leave with a written point of view you can use whether or not we work together.

  • A written point of view on your positioning
  • The two or three decisions that actually matter
  • An honest read on whether we are the right studio
Book a Discovery Session

90 minutes · Paid · Remote or in studio