If anyone has done any work for themselves—painted a painting; made a model; built a shed— you will know how difficult it is to finally stop. It’s about the love you see. The craft. Anything done for yourself has to be just right.

In April of this year, I became the Director of my new design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd. Since then, I’ve been beavering away to get a website up to let the world know what it is we do and who we’ve done it for (so far). Today Mark Boulton Design launches.

It started with a story

The Mark Boulton Design website had to tell the right story. What are we? What do we do? For who? This is all pretty basic marketing and, as designers, we go through these sorts of questions regularly. From those answers, we have to derive a brand. That was a very difficult nut to crack for this website.

If you’re aware of my work—both my writing and my design work—then you’ll know I’m all about the simple things. Simple really doesn’t come easy though; like good tea, it has to be stewed for a while. The design for this site was stewing away for about six months. Most of that was getting the brand right—the tone of voice, the typography, the colour. All of it took bloody ages.

Not just a website

The branding for this project has been applied to a number of things. First off, there is the site. Secondly, there’s the One Page Brochure (available on all pages in the four column footer); a one-page printable PDF document to leave on peoples desks. Then, there’s the RFP project sheet. On top of all of that, I’ve designed new business stationery (and had a ball looking at literally hundreds of paper samples). Quite a lot really.

It’s never finished

When I was in secondary school (about 14 years old), my art teacher would always tell me that I still had work to do on a drawing or painting. It drove me nuts. Every time I thought I’d finish, he’d tell me to go away and work on it for another week. Designing for the web is no different. In fact, this is one of the great things that differenciates the web from other media such as TV or print; it’s a canvas to be worked on again and again.

There’s a load of work still to do on the typography. I want to get the vertical rhythm nailed. I want to get some print style sheets done. I decided today that all of that will have to wait.

Anyway. It’s done. Although my art teacher would probably have asked me to keep going. (note. this is my little ‘it’s not finished quite yet’ disclaimer)