Every Saint Nicolas project runs through the same four short phases — Discover, Direction, Develop, Deliver. You see real work and make a real decision at the end of every one. Scope, deliverables and timeline all agreed in writing before we start.
Before any pixels move, we learn the business — what you sell, who you sell to, what success looks like and the brands you don't want to look like.
A short kickoff call, a structured questionnaire and a written read of the brief. We surface assumptions, name constraints, and put a date-pinned plan in writing before anyone draws anything.
60-minute call covering business, audience and the brands you don't want to look like.
Structured prompts you answer in your own time — usually under an hour.
A short visual audit of where you sit and where the empty space is.
A 2–3 page summary you can share internally — assumptions named, plan pinned.
Two distinct design routes — each shown in the contexts the work will actually live in. We pick one together, then refine.
Two genuinely different design routes — not three variations of one idea. Each is shown in the real contexts the work will live in: favicon, signage, social, dieline, page templates. You see how it behaves before you commit.
Distinct directions — different visual logic, different bets — not safe variants of one.
Each shown at every scale the work will actually need — favicon to billboard.
A 45-minute call to walk through the thinking, not just the visuals.
Why each route, what it's optimising for, what it's quietly betting against.
The chosen direction is built out properly — variants, edge cases, the small decisions that separate a good design from a polished one.
Pixels get pushed into place. Optical adjustments at small sizes, edge-case treatments, monochrome and reversed variants, system rules. Two structured revision rounds — focused on specific decisions, not endless tweaks.
Optical adjustments, edge cases, every scale and surface considered.
Mono, reversed, stacked, horizontal — every working form built and tested.
Structured, focused, scoped to specific decisions. Additional rounds quoted per hour.
The decisions written down so the work survives the team that uses it.
Final files, usage guidelines, asset library and launch checklist — handed over so the work is easy to keep using long after we've moved on.
Final files in every format your team will need. A short usage guide that's actually short. Asset library structure your team can navigate. A 30-day post-launch window for questions — because that's when the small things tend to come up.
SVG, PNG, EPS, PDF — every format you'll need, properly organised.
A short PDF with the rules and the examples, not a 60-page brand bible.
Folder structure, naming, where to put new assets when they're made.
Questions, small tweaks, last-mile rendering issues — covered after launch.
Regardless of which discipline you bring us, six things stay constant across every project.
One senior designer scopes, shapes and ships the work. No account managers in between.
Scope, deliverables and timeline agreed in writing before any work begins. The estimate is the brief.
We test designs in the contexts they'll live in — favicon, signage, social, dieline — not in isolation.
Two genuinely different routes, not three variations of one. The decision matters; we make it real.
Two revision rounds, focused on specific decisions. No "let's just try one more thing".
30 days of support after handover — because that's when the small things tend to surface.
Indicative ranges across the four phases. Every project gets a date-pinned timeline as part of the written estimate before work begins.
The process itself was almost as good as the work. We always knew where we were, what was coming next, and what decision we had to make. After four agencies, that alone was worth the rate.
Phase one begins with a short discovery call. We come back within one working day with a written response.