Every page designed. Not just the home page.
Website design at Empyria means the sitemap, the page-by-page structure, and a finished design for every template on the site; not a home page and a promise about the rest. It suits businesses whose buyers compare them against larger competitors, and it takes three to four weeks inside a six-to-ten-week project.
What the design phase actually involves
Four stages, in this order, because each one is the input to the next. Nothing is drawn until the structure is agreed.
Conversations, not a brief
Two or three hours with the people who actually do the work; the estimator, the foreman, whoever answers the phone. Briefs describe what a business wishes it sounded like. Conversations produce the specifics that make a page believable.
Structure before surface
A sitemap, then a page-by-page outline: what each page has to do, who is reading it, and what it has to say before it asks for anything. This is where most of the value is decided, and it is the stage most studios skip.
Every template designed
Home, services, case study, article, contact, and the ones nobody remembers until launch; the 404, the thank-you, the empty state. A design that stops at the home page is a design that hands its hardest problems to whoever builds it.
A system, not a folder of images
Type scale, spacing rhythm, color roles, and rules for every component. It is the difference between a site you can add a page to in an hour and one where every new page is a negotiation.
What you receive
All of it is yours at the end of the phase, whether or not I build it.
A sitemap that argues
Every URL, with the job it does and the search intent it serves. Pages that have only one of the two are marked as such rather than quietly included.
Page-by-page structure
Section order, heading hierarchy and the argument each page makes, written out before anything is drawn.
Every template, designed
Not a home page and three inside pages. Every template the site will ever render, including the ones only a search engine sees.
A design system
Tokens, type scale, spacing steps and component rules, documented well enough that a different developer could build from it.
Three widths, decided
Desktop, tablet and phone, specified rather than left to reflow and hope. The phone version is designed first where the traffic warrants it.
The source files
Yours, at the end, in a format your next designer can open. No hostage-taking, and no export fee.
Design is part of a project, and projects start at $10,000
Design and development are quoted together, because a design nobody builds is not a result. Most complete projects land between $10,000 and $25,000, and you get a fixed number in writing before anything starts.
Design-only engagements happen, where you have a developer you trust and want the structure and the system done properly. They are quoted case by case, and I will be honest about when the arrangement is likely to produce seams.
How the three services fit togetherWho this is for, and who it is not
It suits a business that gets compared
If your buyers shortlist you against companies ten times your size, the gap they notice is almost never the work. It is the typography, the spacing and the loading. That gap is closeable and this is how it closes.
It suits a site that has to argue something
Credibility before a bid, a hiring page that competes for crews, a service territory a buyer needs answered in one screen. Pages with a job are worth designing. Pages that exist because the nav looked short are not.
It does not suit a brochure you need next week.
Six to ten weeks is the honest number, and most of it is decisions rather than drawing. If the deadline is real and immovable and closer than that, a good template and a competent implementer will serve you better than I will.
It does not suit design by committee
One person has to be able to decide. If every screen needs six approvals, the process will cost more than the design, and the result will be the average of six opinions, which is exactly what a template already gives you, cheaper.
Answered plainly
How many revisions do I get?
No number, because a revision count is a device for making you pay for a bad process. Structure is agreed before anything is drawn, which is where the expensive disagreements happen. After that, direction changes are rare and small ones are just the work.
Will I see it before it is finished?
Yes, and earlier than you expect. The sitemap and page structure come first as plain text, because that is when a change costs nothing. By the time you are looking at a design, the argument is already settled.
Do you use a template or a starter theme?
No. The design exists before the build does, and the build starts from an empty stylesheet. That is the whole reason the number is what it is, and it is the thing a template shop cannot offer at any price.
What if we already have a brand?
Good - that is one fewer thing to decide. Existing type, color and marks are inputs, not obstacles. If something in the brand is actively working against the site, I will say so and then do what you decide.
Send me the site you keep losing to.
It is the most useful thing you can bring to a first call. Thirty minutes, no deck, and a straight answer about whether this is a fit before either of us spends anything.