We built our own site the way we'd build yours.

A studio that sells made-to-measure websites can’t have a site that looks like a template. Ours had to be the proof.

We started with the questions we ask every client. Who is this for? Owner-operators in Canada and the US who can’t tell which tech is right for them. What do they need? Plain answers and real prices, without the agency talk. What should they do next? Book a free 30-minute call.

And one rule from the start: if it looks like every other AI-generated site, it fails.

01 · Start with a place, not a trend

We drew up a few design concepts and tested each one against a simple question: could this belong to any studio, anywhere? Most could. One couldn’t. It took its cues from Montreal itself: limestone rowhouses, copper roofs gone green, the spiral outdoor staircases on the Plateau. It looks premium without looking like a template, and it tells people where we are before they read a word.

We also wrote down what we’d avoid, because the defaults are everywhere: cream and terracotta, near-black with neon, gradient blobs, grids of identical cards, one highlighted word in every headline.

02 · Pictures nobody else has

Stock photos were out. We picked copperplate etching with a light verdigris wash: timeless, a little unexpected, and a nod to those copper roofs. Etching styles drift from image to image, so we made the homepage image first and used it as the reference for the other eleven. Each one was checked for colour, contrast against the text beside it, and stray marks before it went on a page.

03 · Type you can actually read

Our first pick for headings was an elegant high-contrast serif. On a phone it was hard to read, so we swapped it. Gloock keeps the same classic feel and links to our logo, and Instrument Sans keeps the body text clean. Small text never goes under 15 px. Good-looking type that’s hard to read is just decoration.

04 · One big moment, not twenty

Lots of sites animate everything: sections fading up, backgrounds sliding, scrolling that feels slippery. We ruled all of it out and asked a better question: if the homepage gets one moment, what should it show?

The answer was the job itself. An owner’s to-do list sits on a notepad, and as you scroll, a line of ink strikes through each task: quote reply sent, invoice reminder out, a spot higher on Google, post published. One task is left: call back Mrs. Tremblay. That’s the work we take off your plate, shown instead of described. We call it “The handled day.”

Then we worked out the details. The ink follows your scroll, with no snapping and no hijacked scrolling. If your device asks for less motion, you get the finished list and nothing moves. And the list is real text, so screen readers read it like any other list.

05 · A system, so it stays consistent

Before building pages, we wrote the rules: colours, type sizes, spacing, corners, buttons, forms, motion timing. Every text and button colour passes WCAG AA contrast. Buttons are at least 48 px tall so they’re easy to tap. Thin lines instead of card shadows. Every page follows the same rules, so the site looks the same on its fiftieth page as on its first.

06 · Pick the tech for the job, not the hype

A small business site should be fast, cheap to run and easy to keep up. So we chose tools that do one thing well. Astro builds pages that load almost instantly. Cloudflare serves them from close to every visitor. Booking runs on Cal.com, forms on Formspree, the newsletter on Kit. The heavy animation code only loads near the one section that uses it. Most of it costs nothing until it needs to.

07 · Built in-house

Our core team designed and built the site end to end, using AI-assisted development to move fast without cutting corners. It’s how we keep projects quick and costs sensible. When a project needs more hands or a specialist, we bring in experienced developers we trust.

• A Montreal look: twelve original etchings, a custom logo and a palette taken from limestone, slate, verdigris and brass.
• A design system: one set of documented rules behind every page, all colour pairs passing WCAG AA.
• “The handled day”: a scroll-drawn notepad that shows what we do in one moment, with a calm version for reduced motion.
• Fast and accessible: built to WCAG 2.2 AA, with visible focus outlines, full keyboard use, no flashing, no autoplay, and forms that explain how to fix an error right beside the field. The homepage ships very little JavaScript.
• Built to be found: every page readable by Google and AI search, one search phrase per page, structured data for who we are and what each plan costs, and an llms.txt file and plain-text pricing so AI assistants quote our prices correctly.
• Prices in your currency: visitors in Canada see Canadian dollars, everyone else US dollars, with a switch.
• Ready for more languages: built so translated pages can be added without rebuilding the site.
• An assistant that answers and books: it only talks about Codify, answers questions about plans and services, asks what the visitor needs, writes a short project outline and offers a link to book a call. Each chat costs about two to three cents. Every lead lands in a sheet with a note on how ready they are, so the call starts where the chat left off. It’s the kind of assistant we build for clients, so visitors can try one before they buy one.

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• Astro
• Cloudflare Pages
• Cloudflare Workers
• Claude Haiku (chat assistant)
• GSAP + ScrollTrigger (one section)
• Cal.com
• Formspree
• Google Sheets
• Kit (newsletter)