Design terms, in plain English.

A permanent redirect that sends visitors and search engines from an old URL to its new one. Mapping every old URL with a 301 is how a redesign keeps the search traffic the old site earned.

The part of a page visible before anyone scrolls. On a startup homepage it should say what you do, who it's for and the next step.

Deciding how a piece of work should look and feel, and keeping every asset consistent with that decision. It covers imagery, composition, type and color.

A document that explains how to use a brand: the logo, color, type, imagery, tone of voice and the rules around them. Good guidelines let your team make on-brand work without the designer.

The visible system a company is recognized by: logo, color, type, imagery and tone of voice. It's built on positioning, so it says something specific about the company.

The decision about who you're for, what you replace and why you win. Positioning comes before design, because the visuals have to carry that argument.

An update to an existing brand that keeps what people recognize and fixes what's inconsistent or dated. It costs less than a rebrand and suits brands with equity worth keeping.

A brand identity built as a set of reusable parts and rules, so it works across a product, website, deck and campaigns. It's what keeps a growing team's work looking like one company.

A content management system: the tool your team uses to edit pages, posts and case studies without touching code. Framer, Webflow and headless tools like Sanity are all CMS options.

The share of visitors who take the action a page asks for, such as booking a call or starting a trial. It's the number a website redesign should be judged on.

Google's three measures of page experience: how fast the main content loads (LCP), how quickly the page responds (INP) and how much it shifts (CLS). They affect both rankings and conversion.

A shorter or reformatted version of a launch film made for a specific channel, such as a 15-second vertical cut for X or LinkedIn. A launch usually needs several.

A structured review of a company's website, brand and sales material against its buyers and competitors, ending in a ranked list of fixes. Ours is the Brand & Website Diagnostic.

A senior, multi-discipline design team that works with a company on an ongoing basis across brand, web, product and launches. It keeps the context between projects, so each piece of work starts where the last one finished.

A flat monthly fee for design requests submitted to a queue and worked through in order. It suits a high volume of simple, well-briefed assets.

A shared library of components, styles and rules that designers and engineers build product screens from. It makes the product faster to build and consistent to use.

A named value in a design system, such as a color, spacing step or font size, that design and code both read from. Change the token and every screen that uses it updates.

A first conversation about your business, goals and constraints before any scope is written. Ours is 30 minutes and you leave with a recommended scope.

A short video that shows what a product does and why it matters, usually with motion graphics or UI animation. It's often the hero of a launch or a homepage.

A project with set deliverables, a set timeline and one agreed price, written down before work starts. The price only changes if the scope does.

A visual website builder where you design, build and publish in one place, with hosting, a CMS and animation built in. It's often the fastest route to a polished startup marketing site.

The moment work passes from one person or team to the next, such as design to development. Every handoff can lose detail, which is why we keep design and build in one team.

A CMS that stores content and delivers it to a separately built front end, such as a Next.js site. It's the most flexible setup and needs the most engineering.

The first full section of a page, usually a headline, a short explanation, a call to action and an image or video. It does most of the work of keeping a visitor on the page.

How a site's pages and content are organized, named and linked so people find what they need. It's set in the sitemap before any page is designed.

A single page built for one audience and one action, such as a launch, campaign or waitlist. It's often part of a Launch Sprint.

The hero video for a product or company launch, built around one clear job and the first few seconds in the feed. It usually ships with cutdowns for each channel.

Largest Contentful Paint: how long the biggest visible element on a page takes to load. Google counts under 2.5 seconds as good.

A fixed arrangement of a logo's symbol and wordmark, such as stacked or horizontal. A brand usually has a few lockups for different spaces.

A file format that plays After Effects animations on websites and in apps as lightweight vector files. It suits simple, linear animations.

A collection of images, type and color that sets the visual direction before design starts. It helps a team agree on the feel without arguing over finished work.

Animation for brands and products: logo animations, UI motion, explainer videos and launch films. It shows how a product works faster than text can.

A React framework for building websites and web apps in code. It's the right choice when a marketing site needs product logic, demos or deep app integration.

The slides a startup uses to raise money or sell. It should tell the same story as the website, because investors check both.

Designing how a software product works and looks, from user flows and wireframes to the final interface. It covers both UX and UI.

A clickable model of a product or flow used to test an idea before it's built. It's cheaper to change a prototype than shipped code.

Changing a company's brand identity, and often its positioning and name, to match where it's going. Startups usually rebrand after a raise, a pivot or a move upmarket.

A monthly fee for ongoing work from the same team, sized to the expected volume and mix of work. A design partnership is usually priced as a retainer.

A tool for interactive animations that react to input, built as state machines and run in real time on the web and in apps. It suits UI that responds to hover, clicks and data.

Structured data added to a page's code that tells search engines and AI tools what the page is about, such as an article, a service or an FAQ. It helps them describe your company accurately.

Work that grows past what was agreed without the price or timeline changing. The fix is a written scope and written approval for every change.

Evidence from other people that you deliver, such as client quotes, reviews, logos and case studies. It works best when it's specific and placed where buyers hesitate.

A sequence of sketches or frames that plans a film shot by shot before production. Signing off the storyboard early prevents expensive changes late.

A finished still that shows exactly how a moment in a film will look. Style frames lock the visual direction before animation starts.

UX is how a product works and how easy it is to use. UI is how it looks on screen. They're designed together.

A visual development platform with a mature CMS, hosting and an Editor for content teams. It suits content-heavy sites with a marketing team that publishes often.

A plain layout of a page or screen showing structure and content, without visual design. It's where hierarchy and flow get agreed.

A logo made only of the company's name set in a specific typeface or custom lettering. Many brands pair a wordmark with a symbol.