Brand identity
A workable visual language for a young company — built to be used by non-designers without falling apart.
- Wordmark and mark variants
- Type, colour and layout rules
- Short usage guide
Independent designer · Available for new work
Careful brand and web design, made one project at a time.
I'm Mara — a freelance designer building identities, marketing sites and small design systems for founders and lean teams who want one person to own the whole thing.
Taking two new projects this quarter
Services
Three things I do properly, instead of ten things loosely.
Each engagement is scoped in writing before it starts, so you know what arrives and when.
Website design
Marketing sites that read clearly, load fast and give one honest next step on every page.
- Structure and copy direction
- Responsive page design
- Build-ready handover
Design systems
A tidy component library so your team can ship new pages months later and still look like itself.
- Token and spacing scale
- Core component set
- Developer notes
Selected work
A few recent projects, described plainly.
Fictional client work shown to illustrate the kind of problems I take on.
Ledgerleaf — product site
Rebuilt a dense feature page into a short, scannable site with one clear path to a trial sign-up.
Northfold Studio — identity
Gave a two-person architecture practice a quiet wordmark and a type system they can set themselves.
Cadence Health — design system
Replaced three drifting component sets with one documented library the engineering team now maintains.
How it works
Four steps, no surprises in the middle.
Most projects run four to seven weeks, in weekly checkpoints you can plan around.
Step 01
Enquiry
You send a short brief. I reply within two working days with questions or a straight yes or no.
Step 02
Scope
We agree deliverables, dates and a fixed price in one document before any design begins.
Step 03
Design sprints
Work arrives in weekly instalments. You review in one place, I fold feedback into the next pass.
Step 04
Handover
You get source files, exports and a walkthrough, plus two weeks of questions answered free.
About
One designer, start to finish.
I work solo on purpose. There's no account layer between you and the person drawing the thing, which means fewer meetings, faster decisions and a consistent hand across every screen.
Before going independent I spent several years inside small product teams, which is why I tend to design in systems rather than one-off pages — and why I write handover notes a developer can actually use.
I'm a good fit if you value restraint over novelty, want a clear scope, and would rather talk once a week than every afternoon. I'm a poor fit for open-ended retainers or design-by-committee.
— Mara, Mara Room Design
Questions
The things clients ask first.
How long does a project take?
An identity usually runs three to four weeks; a marketing site four to seven, depending on how many pages we keep. The agreed dates sit in the scope document and I flag any slippage the same week it appears.
What if the scope changes mid-project?
We pause, price the change as a small addition and either fold it in or park it for a second phase. Nothing gets quietly absorbed, and nothing gets billed without you agreeing first.
Do you work with developers?
Often. I can design to your team's stack and join their reviews, or bring in a developer I've worked with before if you'd rather hand over one finished thing.
What do I receive at the end?
Editable source files, exported assets in the formats you need, a short usage guide, and a recorded walkthrough so new team members can catch up later.
Start a project
Tell me what you're making.
A short brief is plenty to begin with — the shape of the company, the deadline you're working to, and what you'd like to be true when we finish.
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Good first message
Who you are, what needs designing, and roughly when you'd like it live.
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What happens next
A reply with questions, a suggested scope, or an honest referral elsewhere.