Studio intake Two retainer slots open for Q1 2027 — project work booking from February. Start a brief
Lucid Vessel
Brand & product studio — six people, one room

We give good ideas a shape people trust.

Lucid Vessel works with founders and in-house teams who have something genuinely worth explaining, and a launch date that is already in the calendar. We build the identity, the interface and the words that carry it.

What we practise

  • Brand systems Naming direction, identity, type and colour rules, and a kit your team can actually use.
  • Product interfaces Information architecture, flows and a component library handed over in design and code.
  • Launch narrative Positioning, site copy and the launch assets that keep one voice across every channel.

Working remotely — studio hours 09:00–17:00 CET

Engagements — sprint, build, retainer

Typical start — four to six weeks from signed brief

A long open studio room with timber desks, task lamps and pinned-up printed layouts along one wall.
The studio room — Thursday review wall

How the studio runs

Small on purpose, so the people who pitch are the people who build

There is no account layer between you and the work. You brief the studio lead, and the designers and engineers who heard that brief are the ones who ship it.

  • Six people, no handoff

    Two designers, two engineers, a writer and a studio lead. Every engagement uses the same core group, so context does not get re-explained halfway through.

  • One lead, start to handover

    A single studio lead owns scope, schedule and the decisions log from kickoff until your team takes the files over.

  • Written review every Thursday

    You get a short written note each week: what moved, what is blocked, what needs a decision from your side before Monday.


Engagements

Three ways in, priced as a fixed scope

Pick the lane that matches the decision in front of you. Every lane is quoted as a fixed fee against a written scope — no hourly billing, no surprise change orders.

Lane 01

Direction sprint

For teams who know the product but cannot agree on the story. Two weeks to settle positioning, naming direction and the visual territory before anyone opens a design file.

Two weeks · one studio lead, one designer, one writer

Brief a direction sprint
You leave with
  • Positioning statement and messaging hierarchy
  • Two visual territories, one chosen and rationalised
  • Naming shortlist with availability notes
  • A one-page brief your wider team can work from

Lane 02

Identity & site build

For a launch, a rebrand or a funding milestone. The full pass: identity system, marketing site and the copy that runs through it, built and handed over in code.

Eight to twelve weeks · full studio

Brief an identity build
You leave with
  • Identity system with type, colour and layout rules
  • Responsive marketing site, built and handed over
  • Component library in design and code
  • Brand guide plus a recorded walkthrough for your team

Lane 03

Studio retainer

For in-house teams who need design capacity that already knows the brand. A fixed block of studio days each month, planned a fortnight ahead.

Rolling, three-month minimum · booked in monthly blocks

Ask about a retainer slot
You leave with
  • A planned backlog reviewed every two weeks
  • New pages, features and campaign assets on cadence
  • Design-system maintenance as the product changes
  • Direct access to the studio channel on working days

How a project runs

Four stages, each ending in something you can review

Week markers below are for a typical identity and site build. Sprints compress the same sequence; retainers repeat stages three and four on a fortnightly cycle.

  1. 01

    Brief & scope

    A working session with your decision-makers, then a written scope with deliverables, dates and a fixed fee. Nothing starts until that document is signed by both sides.

    Weeks 1–2
  2. 02

    Direction

    Territories, messaging and structure. We present two routes, take one forward, and record why the other was set aside so the question does not return in week nine.

    Weeks 2–4
  3. 03

    Build

    Design and front-end run together in weekly cycles. You review real pages in a browser rather than flat mock-ups, and two rounds of revisions are built into the schedule.

    Weeks 4–10
  4. 04

    Handover

    Files, source, brand guide and a recorded walkthrough for your team, plus thirty days of support for anything that surfaces once you are live.

    Weeks 10–12

Selected work

A short index — what the brief was, what shipped

Three recent engagements, described by the work rather than the outcome. Longer walkthroughs, including the parts that went sideways, are shared on a call.

A workshop wall covered in sticky notes and printed message hierarchies during a positioning session.

Climate hardware · Direction sprint

Northbeam Instruments

A sensor company whose engineers could explain the product perfectly to each other and to nobody else. Two weeks to find language a procurement lead would recognise.

  • Positioning
  • Naming
  • Messaging
Shipped
Messaging hierarchy, a chosen visual territory and a product naming convention the hardware and sales teams now share.
A desk with a laptop showing interface code beside a notebook of layout sketches.

Logistics software · Identity & site build

Harbourline

A freight scheduling tool with eleven years of accumulated screens. We rebuilt the identity and the marketing site, then turned the interface patterns into one documented library.

  • Identity
  • Design system
  • Site build
  • Copy
Shipped
Identity system, a nine-page marketing site in code, and a component library their two product squads now build from.
Two studio colleagues reviewing page layouts together across a shared worktable.

Independent publisher · Studio retainer

Fern & Quire

A books imprint releasing on a seasonal calendar. A standing block of studio days keeps every title launch on the same visual footing without a new brief each time.

  • Retainer
  • Campaign pages
  • Art direction
Shipped
A seasonal campaign template, four title launches to date, and art direction notes the in-house editor applies between releases.

Before you write

Is this studio a fit for your project?

Worth two minutes now rather than a wasted call later. If the second list describes your situation, say so in your brief and we will point you somewhere better suited.

A good fit when

  • You have a decision-maker available weekly — not a committee reviewing in month two.
  • The product exists, or is close enough that we can work from something real.
  • You want the brand and the build from one group, handed over in code.
  • A fixed scope and a fixed fee suit you better than an open hourly arrangement.
  • You are planning four to six weeks out, not looking for a start this week.

Probably not us

  • You need a full campaign live in under three weeks.
  • The main requirement is ongoing paid media or SEO retainer work.
  • You want several studios pitching speculative concepts before anyone is engaged.
  • The scope is a single asset — one logo, one deck, one banner set.
  • Direction has to be signed off by a board that only convenes quarterly.

Questions

The things clients ask first

If your question is not here, put it at the top of your brief and it will be answered in the reply rather than on a call.

How do you price work?
Fixed fee against a written scope. After the brief session you receive a scope document listing deliverables, review dates and the total. Retainers are priced as a monthly block of studio days. We do not bill hourly, and we do not issue change orders for anything already named in the scope.
Who will I actually be working with?
The studio lead who takes your brief stays on the project through handover, and the designers and engineers in the kickoff are the ones who build it. There is no account manager relaying messages, and no junior team inheriting the work after the pitch.
Can you work with the brand assets we already have?
Often, yes. Plenty of engagements are a repair rather than a replacement — keeping a wordmark that still works, rebuilding the type, colour and layout system around it. The brief session includes an honest read on what is worth keeping.
What do you need from us to keep to schedule?
One decision-maker who can approve direction, a response to the Thursday review note before Monday, and any content you own — product detail, legal copy, existing photography — delivered in the first fortnight. Late content is the single most common cause of slipped dates.
How does handover work, and who owns the files?
You do, in full, once the final invoice is settled. Handover includes source design files, site source, the brand guide and a recorded walkthrough. Thirty days of support follows, for fixes and questions as your team settles in.
Do you build on a particular platform?
We build the front end ourselves and connect it to whichever content system your team will realistically maintain. If nobody internally wants to manage a build pipeline, we will say so and recommend something simpler to live with.
When can a project start?
Typically four to six weeks from a signed brief. Two retainer slots are open for the first quarter of 2027, and project work is booking from February. Direction sprints occasionally fit into a gap sooner — worth asking.
What happens after a retainer ends?
Nothing breaks. Retainers run on a rolling basis after an initial three months, with a month's notice either way. Everything produced is documented in your system as it is built, so an ending is a handover rather than an unpicking.

Start a brief

Tell us what you are building

A few lines is enough to start. The studio lead reads every enquiry and replies with either a time to talk or a straight answer about fit.

We reply to every enquiry within two working days. Nothing you write here is shared outside the studio.

What happens next

  • Step one

    A read, not a sales call

    The studio lead reads your brief and replies with a fit assessment — including when the answer is no.

  • Step two

    Forty-five minutes together

    One call with your decision-maker to pressure-test scope, sequence and the date behind it.

  • Step three

    A written scope

    Deliverables, review dates and a fixed fee in one document. You decide from that, not from a pitch deck.