Services

How I work

A new identity does little for a site that is hard to use. Good writing cannot rescue an offer nobody has understood. The packages below are sold as separate pieces because that is how people need to buy them, and each one still opens the same way: a long conversation about the work, and a slow read of everything you already have.

I take a small number of clients at a time and do the work myself, so the person you meet on the first call is the person who does it. Some of these companies sell what they make and some sell what they do; where a package belongs to product businesses alone, it says so.

The packages

Each package is priced within a range, and your proposal names one figure inside it before any work begins. Half is due to start and half on delivery, and every engagement ends with a session on how to keep what has been built.

The ranges are all in the price list. Tell me where to send it and it will arrive in a minute or two.

The Audit

A close read of what you already have.

For the company that has been running a year or two and wants a name for the thing that is holding it back.

I read your business the way I would read a text: slowly, in full, and against what it is trying to say. Over two weeks I go through your identity, your site, your listings or your portfolio, your email, and your wholesale presence if you have one.

What you receive

  • A written report of twenty to thirty pages, by channel
  • The ten changes that will matter most, in order
  • A sixty-minute call to walk through the findings
  • Thirty days of email access afterward

Timeline: two weeks

The audit fee is credited toward any package you go on to take.

The Identity

A name that holds and a look that lasts.

For the company whose work has outgrown the name it started with, or that has been running on a logo made in an afternoon.

Your identity is the part of the company a client sees first and then keeps seeing: the name, the mark, the colors, the type, the label on the box. I begin with a long conversation about your work, the people who come to you for it, and the company you want to be in five years.

What you receive

  • Naming, if you need it, with domain, handle, and trademark checks
  • A primary and secondary wordmark, in every format you will be asked for
  • A palette and a typographic system, with the rules for using them
  • Templates for the pieces you send most, and the printed things your work calls for
  • A brand guide of ten to fifteen pages, and a Canva kit so you can make new pieces yourself

Timeline: four weeks

The Voice

The words you would use if you had the time to find them.

For the company whose work is better than its sentences, or whose owner writes well and would like to know how she does it.

A brand's voice is the part of its identity that people meet most often and notice least. It lives in the page that describes the work, the note that confirms a date, and the caption written late at night. I find yours by listening, and set it down carefully enough that it holds once the engagement ends.

What you receive

  • A recorded sixty-minute conversation, transcribed, so your own phrases become the raw material
  • A brand voice guide of eight to twelve pages
  • Your About page written in full, with a tagline and a short brand statement
  • Copy for your ten best sellers, or for the services you offer
  • Templates for the writing you do every week

Timeline: three weeks

Taken with The Identity, the look and the language arrive in a single guide.

The Site

A site that works while you do.

For the brand selling on Etsy or Instagram that is ready for a home of its own, and the studio whose inquiries all arrive as direct messages.

Some of these sites sell: a catalog, a cart, a checkout, and the unglamorous settings underneath. Some are asked: a portfolio in the right order, and an inquiry that arrives with the date, the scope, and the budget already in it. A good site for an independent company can be small, so long as it is complete and it sounds like you.

What you receive

  • Theme selection and setup, or a considered refresh of the one you have
  • Every page a client expects to find, written by me
  • Product pages for your full catalog, or a portfolio and service pages
  • An inquiry or booking path that brings you the right questions
  • Every automatic message written in your voice rather than the platform's, and the paper that travels in the box — the pieces almost every build leaves in the default, and the ones a customer is most certain to read
  • A recorded walkthrough of the admin, so you can add work and edit pages yourself

Timeline: five to six weeks

I build on Shopify. Photography stays with you: I write the shot list.

The Wholesale Launch

Your work in shops you would want to visit.

For product businesses only — the brand that has proven itself directly to customers and is ready to be carried by stores. If you sell your time rather than a thing that ships, this is the one package here that is not for you.

Wholesale lets a small company grow through relationships rather than through a larger advertising budget, and a Faire account is only the beginning: a shop also needs a price, a minimum, a line sheet it can order from, and a reason to believe the work will sell on its shelf.

What you receive

  • Pricing and terms: minimums, case packs, lead times, payment
  • A Faire storefront, set up and written in full, or a rebuild of the one you have
  • A line sheet and a digital catalog designed to your identity
  • Four outreach letters in your voice, and twenty-five researched shops with a note on each
  • A system for tracking retailers and reorders, and a guide to the first ninety days

Timeline: four weeks

The Launch

For a company still to be formed.

For the person who has been doing this for friends and is ready to do it for strangers.

This is the whole thing, in order: I walk you through forming the company and the paperwork that follows it, and then we build your identity, your voice, your site, and your email program in sequence, so that on the day you open everything is already in place and already sounds like you.

What you receive

  • Practical guidance through the LLC, the tax identification, the accounts, and the bookkeeping, with an attorney and an accountant named where each belongs
  • The Identity, The Voice, The Site, and Email Foundations, each in full
  • A launch plan for your first ninety days, and weekly calls throughout

Timeline: ten to twelve weeks

Mentorship

One hour, on the question you keep setting aside.

For the person who is building it herself and wants someone else's experience rather than someone else's hands.

Some questions do not need a project attached to them: what to charge, whether to take the account, which page is quietly costing you work. I read what you already have beforehand, so the hour begins where your own thinking stopped, and afterward I write you a short note naming the three things to do first, and in what order.

Two ways to take it

  • One hour. A single conversation, recorded, so you can listen rather than take notes.
  • Four, one a season. The same hour across a year, at a lower rate for the commitment.

The four are the better version, and I would steer you there: an hour changes what you think, and a year of them changes what you do. You do not have to become a client to book either, and there is no pitch at the end of it.

Ongoing

Some clients want me to stay. Once a package is finished, there are three ways to keep working together.

The Retainer — fifteen to twenty-five hours a month, covering the ordinary life of a company: campaigns, new pages, seasonal updates, outreach, and a standing call to decide what comes next. Three months minimum.

The Day — one focused day on one problem: a launch, a page that is being looked at and skipped, a catalog that needs rewriting, a Faire storefront that needs rebuilding before a show.

Office Hours — half an hour at a time, for clients I have already built something for. Use it freely; it exists so that you are never stuck with something I built.

Smaller pieces

These are the pieces clients most often ask for on their own.

  • A line sheet, designed and written
  • An About page, written in full
  • A brand voice guide on its own, from one recorded conversation
  • Product copy by the ten listings, or a set of service pages
  • A naming study, with candidates, reasoning, and an availability check
  • A logo refresh, keeping what works and redrawing the rest
  • An Etsy shop audit, with listing rewrites for your ten best sellers
  • A single automated email sequence, written and built
  • A seasonal landing page or gift guide, written and built
  • Your transactional messages and packing slips, if the rest of the site is fine and only these were never done

Each of these is priced in the list as well. Ask me for it here.

How it begins

Write to me from the Inquire page with a few sentences about your work and what you are hoping to build, and I will reply within two business days to arrange a conversation. That first call is thirty minutes and costs nothing. If it is a fit, I send a proposal within a week naming the scope, the timeline, and the price, and the work begins when the deposit is received.

I work with independent brands and studios: makers, photographers, planners, designers of every stripe, and shops with an owner's name behind them. Most of the work happens over email and video, and I meet clients in person in New York.

Needlepoint brands included, and gladly. I run one, so the painters, the finishers, the mesh counts, the shows, and the beginner who leaves a canvas in her cart because she has decided she will get it wrong are all familiar ground. If your work and Pierrepont's sit close together, I will tell you on the first call exactly where. What you tell me stays with me, and what I know from my own studio stays there.

Questions

What does it cost?
Every package has a range, and the whole list is a minute away. Your proposal then names one figure inside the range before any work begins.

Do you work with service businesses, or only product brands?
Both. The company I built and run is a product company, and it is the case study on this site — I would rather say that plainly than let you find it out. What transfers to a studio is the hard part either way: hearing your voice, writing it down, and building a site that works while you are busy. Wholesale is the exception, and it says so above.

Can I buy one part of a package?
You often can, and the smaller pieces above are the most common requests. If what you want is an hour of thinking rather than a piece of work, take some mentorship.

What do you need from me?
Your time, your photographs, and your honesty about what you want. Each package begins with a long conversation and a short questionnaire, and I ask for feedback at two or three points along the way.

Will it sound like me?
It will, and that is the point of the work. If a sentence I have written sounds like me, tell me, and I will find the one that sounds like you.

How is payment handled?
Half at the start and half on delivery for packages, monthly in advance for retainers, and on receipt for days, hours, and mentorship. I invoice by email and accept cards and bank transfers, and I will sign a non-disclosure agreement if you would like one — I keep what a client shares with me in confidence either way.

Thesis is the studio of Margaret Colhoun, founder of Pierrepont Needlepoint, Brooklyn.