What a week buys
By Ali Abedi ·
A Magenta Web website project takes four to six weeks from kickoff to launch. Week one is the brief, weeks two and three are structure and design together, and the remaining weeks are build, motion and launch. We quote in weeks rather than months because the design system under every build means we never spend a month re-deciding solved problems.
How long does a website project take?
Clients are often surprised that we quote in weeks, not months. The reason is not that we work faster than everyone else. It is that we do not spend the first month rediscovering decisions we have already made.
What happens in week one?
Week one is the brief: goals, audience, the shape of the story, and the one thing the site must do well. No mood boards yet. A mood board before a brief is decoration looking for a purpose.
What happens in weeks two and three?
Weeks two and three are structure and design running together: real content in real layouts, on the system, reviewed against the brief instead of against taste. Because the system carries the fundamentals, review time goes to the decisions that are actually about this client.
What happens in the last weeks before launch?
The remaining weeks are build, motion, and the details: performance, accessibility, the empty states nobody briefs, the way a form behaves when someone gets it wrong. Then launch, with the site in the client's hands and a build their team can maintain.
A week buys a lot when none of it is spent re-deciding solved problems. That is the whole trade.
Questions
- Can a project take less than four weeks?
- A small site with its content ready on day one can launch in four weeks; the two published case studies took four and five. Under four means the brief is already done.
- What slows a project down?
- Content that arrives late, and decisions re-opened after the brief. Both are why the brief is week one and why structure and design run together against it.
- What do you need from the client each week?
- Week one, an hour for the brief. Weeks two and three, a review against the brief within two days of each round. Then the content and images still owed, and a launch date.
Ali Abedi is the founder of Magenta Web, a brand identity, web design, and digital marketing studio in West Palm Beach, Florida. He has designed and built websites for architecture, hospitality, legal and technology clients for more than ten years.