Brand from the ground up
A complete visual system for a young company, or a considered rework for one that has outgrown its first look.
- Positioning and naming support
- Wordmark, palette and type system
- Guidelines your team can actually use
Independent brand & web designer
Careful design for small teams with big taste.
Plum Garden is the one-person studio of Rowan Vale. I build identities and websites slowly enough to get them right, and I stay close to the people who will live with the work afterwards.
What I do
Three ways to work together
Most engagements land in one of these shapes. If yours sits somewhere in between, say so in the form and we will size it honestly.
Websites that stay legible
Design and front-end build for marketing sites, portfolios and small catalogues — fast, accessible and easy to edit.
- Structure and copy shaping
- Design in the browser, not in slides
- Handover with a written walkthrough
Art direction by the month
A standing half-day each week for teams who have the ideas and need a steady pair of eyes on everything that ships.
- Campaign and photography direction
- Review of in-house design work
- Templates so the team moves faster
Selected work
A few recent projects
Small budgets, real constraints, long-lived results. Each of these shipped with the founder in the room.
Identity · Wellness
Marrow & Moss
A herbal tea maker moving from market stall to shelf. New wordmark, a four-colour range system and label artwork that scales down to 40mm.
Web · Publishing
The Quarter Review
An independent essay quarterly. A reading-first website with a typographic scale that survives long articles and slow connections alike.
Direction · Retail
Fennel Street Goods
Six months of art direction for a two-shop homewares brand: photography briefs, seasonal templates and a calmer social grid.
Longer write-ups, including the parts that did not work first time, are available on request during our first call.
How we'll work
Four steps, no surprises
You always know what is happening this week, what is coming next and what I need from you to keep moving.
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01
First call
Forty-five minutes on what you are building, who it is for and what is currently getting in the way.
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02
Written proposal
Scope, a fixed price, a dated schedule and the two or three assumptions the estimate rests on.
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03
Design in the open
Work lands in weekly instalments. You comment in one place; I reply the same day wherever I can.
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04
Handover
Files, source and a plain-language guide, plus a month of small fixes so nothing stalls after launch.
About
One designer, start to finish
I spent nine years inside studios before starting Plum Garden, mostly on brands that needed to look established long before they were. Working alone means the person you meet on the first call is the person drawing the last icon.
- Plain language in every document, including the invoice.
- Accessibility and performance are part of the design, not a later pass.
- Two projects at a time, so neither one waits.
- If something is the wrong idea, I will say so early.
Questions
Asked before most projects
How long does a project usually take?
An identity runs about five to six weeks; a small website four to eight, depending on how much of the copy exists when we start. The proposal always carries real dates rather than a range.
How many rounds of revisions are included?
Two full rounds per stage, which is plenty when feedback arrives in one collected batch. Because work is shared weekly, most changes happen long before a formal round is needed.
What if the scope changes halfway through?
We pause, price the change on its own and you decide whether it belongs in this project or the next one. Nothing gets added quietly to the final invoice.
Do you work with teams in other time zones?
Yes. Most of the work is asynchronous and written down, with one live call a week at a time that suits you. Anything more than six hours apart, we agree a fixed overlap window up front.
Start a project
Tell me what you're making
A few lines is enough to begin. I reply to every enquiry within two working days, either with a first call invitation or an honest pointer elsewhere.
- Studio email
- hello@plumgarden.studio
- Best fit
- Founders, small teams and independent publishers
- Next opening
- Two project slots from March