Brand, web & campaign studio
Amber House works with founder-led companies on the unglamorous part first — what you sell, to whom, and in what words — then builds the identity, the site and the launch around that answer.
Two delivery slots open in April, one in June. We run three engagements at a time and no more.
Every engagement opens with a paid two-week diagnostic. If the direction is wrong, you stop there and keep the work.
Speculative pitching, unnamed RFPs, and retainers that exist to fill a calendar rather than move something forward.
Four lanes
Most projects combine two lanes. Each one is scoped as a fixed piece of work with a stated shape, so you can tell before writing to us whether we are the right size of studio.
Lane 01
For companies whose offer has drifted from the words on the website, or who need a name that survives legal review.
Typical shape — two to four weeks
Lane 02
A working system rather than a logo file: the rules that let your team produce things that still look like you.
Typical shape — four to eight weeks
Lane 03
Designed in the browser against your real content, not a grid of placeholder blocks filled in later.
Typical shape — six to twelve weeks
Lane 04
The six weeks around a launch, when everything needs to say the same thing in a dozen different formats.
Typical shape — three to six weeks
Selected engagements
Three engagements described by the problem we were handed and the scope we agreed. We publish what we did, not what we would like you to infer from it.
A regional food wholesaler opening direct orders to the public for the first time. The trade language did not translate, so we rewrote the offer before touching the mark.
A fourth-generation textile mill with sixty years of inconsistent labels. We built one system covering selvedge tickets, swatch books and the trade site.
A two-person advisory practice launching a second service line. One site, one narrative, and a rollout their team could run without us after week six.
After you write to us
The same four stages every time. You can leave at the end of stage one with everything produced so far.
Interviews, an audit of what you already have, and a written read of the problem. It ends with a recommendation that sometimes says do less than you asked.
Two routes, one of them recommended and argued for. We present in person or on a call, never by sending a deck and waiting.
Weekly working sessions instead of milestone reveals. You see rough work early, which is the only point at which changing it is cheap.
Working files, source, fonts and licences in your ownership, plus a recorded session so the next person inherits the reasoning too.
The studio
Amber House is six people: two strategists, two designers, a writer and an engineer. The person who runs your diagnostic stays on the project until handover, and you have their direct line from day one.
We keep the studio small on purpose. Three live engagements is the ceiling, which is why the calendar above is specific rather than open-ended.
We work remotely most weeks and travel for the sessions that are worth being in a room for — kickoff, direction, and the week before a launch.
Before you enquire
The questions we are asked most often on first calls, answered properly so the call can start somewhere more useful.
With the two-week diagnostic. It is quoted as a fixed fee, it is the same for every client, and it produces a written recommendation you own outright. About one in six diagnostics ends with us advising a smaller piece of work than the one we were approached about.
A fixed fee per lane, quoted after the diagnostic when the scope is actually known. We do not bill hourly, and we do not quote a full identity or site from a first email — any number given that early is a guess wearing a suit.
No. Speculative design costs the studio real weeks and tends to reward whoever guessed the brief most flatteringly. If you need to see judgement before committing, the diagnostic is the honest version of that test.
The people you meet. There is no account manager translating between you and a production team, and nothing is subcontracted without telling you who and why in advance.
Often the better arrangement. We frequently set the system and hand the day-to-day production to an internal designer, which is cheaper for you and keeps the work close to the business. Say so in your enquiry and we will scope it that way.
Everything we made for you: editable source files, exported assets, code repositories, and the font and image licences transferred into your name. No hosted portal you lose access to when the invoice cycle ends.
That is fine, and worth asking about. Single-lane projects — a naming sprint, a messaging hierarchy, an accessibility pass on an existing site — make up a decent share of the calendar.
Four to eight weeks before you want work to begin. The diagnostic can usually start sooner than the build, so an early conversation costs you nothing in scheduling terms.
Enquiries
A few lines is plenty for a first message. We read every enquiry ourselves and reply within two working days, including when the answer is that we are not the right studio for it.
If it is a fit, we will suggest a half-hour call and send two or three questions beforehand so the time is spent on your problem rather than on introductions.