Bodkin & Press

Custom websites for small businesses

Websites for small businesses · Wherever you are

Custom websites for small businesses. Researched, written, then designed.

Bodkin & Press is an independent studio in Philadelphia, working with businesses anywhere. Every site begins with research into the business — its history, its trade and its customers — and the writing and the design follow from what that research finds.

View the styles Pricing

The styles

Some of the ways your site could look

These aren’t templates. Each one is a direction with a full demo site behind it, and its own type, colours and way of moving. Most real sites land somewhere between two of them.

Each of the next pages is set in the style it describes. Scroll to turn them.

Scroll-driven

Flipbook

Each scroll moves the story on by one scene. Stop, and it stops.

For restaurants, distilleries, venues and makers with a story that’s best told in order. Scroll back up and it plays in reverse.

Type: Bodoni Moda for the headings, Archivo for everything else.
Colour: Near-black, warm ivory text, and one ember orange kept for the details.
Motion: One scene per scroll: the name, the room, the menu, the phone number.
Still: A version with no motion, for reduced-motion settings and older phones.

Open Vessel, the restaurant demo

Live 3D

Loupe

A model of the real thing, which the visitor can turn over and take apart.

For watchmakers, jewellers, instrument and furniture makers, whose work sells once people see how it’s made. Nothing here is a photograph: the watch on this page was modelled in Blender at real size and is drawn live in your browser.

Model: Every screw, jewel and wheel at real size, each finished the way the real part is.
Time: The watch shows your local time, and its balance beats 21,600 times an hour.
Motion: On the demo site, scrolling takes it apart a layer at a time and names each part.
Speed: Sixty frames a second on a laptop or phone; with reduced motion, stills of the same model.

Open Ostler, the watchmaker demo

A steel chronograph with a green sunray dial, modelled in Blender: the subject of this style

Quiet and exact

Private View

Each section is a white wall with one thing hung on it.

For clinics, dentists, jewellers, architects and law firms, where clients are paying for judgement. Everything on the page is placed and captioned the way a gallery hangs a show.

Type: Archivo in two weights. Black on a warm white wall, one grey for small print.
Light: Each section brightens as you reach it, and a soft light follows the cursor.
Captions: Small, and always the same distance from what they describe.
Prices: Shown once, in small type, like a gallery’s price list.

Open Ashgrove, the dental practice demo

Loud colour

Wheatpaste

Readable from across the street.

For juice bars, taco shops, gyms, record and skate shops, usually opened by people under thirty-five for people their age. It’s loud, and every colour is still checked for contrast.

Colour: Lime, magenta and cobalt, each text pair checked for contrast.
Type: Archivo at its heaviest, in capitals, set tight, with a ticker along the top.
Motion: Buttons lean, stickers spin, cards change colour under the cursor.
Grid: Strict underneath, which keeps all of it readable.

Open PULP, the juice bar demo

Old firm

Signet

The founding year sits above the name, and nothing on the page moves quickly.

For tailors, wine merchants, funeral homes and any firm with a founding date on the door. The colours are an old club library’s.

Colour: Bottle green, ivory type, brass rules.
Type: Sorts Mill Goudy in small capitals, and a crest drawn in a single line weight.
Motion: Fades take about a second and a half. Nothing slides across the page.
Prices: By appointment. The site’s job is to get the appointment.

Open Ridley & Sons, the tailor demo

How a project runs

My process.

Six steps, in the same order on every project. None of them is skipped.

01
Facts first

Every claim the site will make — the founding year, the credentials, the numbers — is checked and sourced before a word is written. You receive the list.
02
Words before layout

The copy is written to your trade and your customers first, so the design is built around what has to be said rather than the other way round.
03
Design taken from the business

The colour, the type and every drawn mark come from something real in your premises or your history. Nothing is chosen from a template.
04
Built by hand, tested for real

Pages written without a page builder, then checked on real phones, with a keyboard and with a screen reader before anyone else sees them.
05
Handed over in your name

The domain, the hosting and every account belong to you from the first day, with written documentation and enough training to run the site without me.
06
Kept up afterwards

Monitoring, updates and changes on a published care plan — or none at all. Your choice, in writing.

What it costs

Four fixed prices, published in full.

Every project is scoped the same way: the number of pages, the complexity of the build, and how much research and writing it needs. Prices capped at $5,000.

Starter

from $900

For a business with nothing online yet: one well-made page, delivered quickly.

One page, or two
Your words and your photographs, placed and set
Hours, phone, address and a map, marked up so search engines read them
Responsive, accessible, fast
One round of revisions
No original research
Set in the studio's house type and grid rather than a bespoke design

Start here

Essential

from $1,600

For a business that has its own copy and photography: the site built around them.

The pages you need, built to order
Your copy, edited rather than rewritten
Responsive, accessible, fast
One round of revisions
No original research

Start here

Signature — most chosen

from $2,300

Research, writing and a design drawn from the business itself.

Everything in Essential
Original research and a sourced claim brief
Copy written from scratch, to your trade
A palette derived from the business
Design system, motion, structured data
Accessibility and cross-browser certification
Two rounds of revisions, launch and handover

Start here

Flagship

from $3,800

Everything in Signature, with additional pages, local search setup and six months of care.

Everything in Signature
One or two extra page templates
Google Business Profile, citations, review flow
Six months of the Standard care plan

Start here

Care plans are $50, $100 or $225 a month: hosting, backups, security updates and content changes. Many businesses already pay more than that to lease a site they do not own.

Ask for a quote

In three dimensions · priced apart

When the work itself is the argument.

Some businesses sell a thing people need to see turn — a watch, a ring, an instrument, a chair. For them the studio builds sites with the object in them: modelled in Blender, drawn live in the browser, taken apart by the scroll, like Ostler. It is a different kind of build, on its own prices. Most businesses never need one; for them, the four prices above are the whole story.

One scene
$7,500–$10,000

One modelled object, turned and taken apart, on an otherwise ordinary site.
A scroll story
$10,000–$14,000

A storyboarded story in five to nine scenes, with the everyday pages people search for.
A whole world
$14,000–$18,000

Several scenes sharing one world, with the move between pages staged too.

Every 3D site is kept on the $350-a-month 3D care plan: browsers and graphics drivers change, and a 3D site nobody looks after breaks within a year.

Ask about a 3D site

Questions

Q&A

How long does it take?

Two to six weeks, depending on the tier and how much research the business needs. The code has never been the bottleneck. Rush work, taken ahead of everything else, is priced at fifteen per cent over the tier.

Who owns the site when it's finished?

You do, at final payment. The domain and hosting are in your own accounts, in your name; the studio holds access, not ownership, and you can leave at any time with everything.

Can you just fix the site I already have?

Sometimes. Often, repairing a template someone else built costs more than replacing it, and you will be told which before any work starts.

What happens if something can't be verified?

It is sourced, narrowed until it is defensible, attributed to you in your own words, or removed. Unverified claims do not stay on the page.

Who this is built for

Bodkin & Press

Custom websites for small businesses. Researched, written, then designed.

Some of the ways your site could look

Flipbook

Loupe

Private View

Wheatpaste

Signet

My process.

Facts first

Words before layout

Design taken from the business

Built by hand, tested for real

Handed over in your name

Kept up afterwards

Four fixed prices, published in full.

Q&A

Trades the studio knows well.

Funeral homes

Restaurants

Auto body shops

Philadelphia businesses

Start a project.