Rude by Design

Designing difference for creatives

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Tiptoes & Tappers

Web design for kids’ dance school based in Greenwich.

Tiptoes & Tappers

Tiptoes & Tappers provides classes aimed at improving dance skills and building the confidence of young kids.

I designed the website to reflect a welcoming and responsible attitude.

Tiptoes & Tappers
Tiptoes & Tappers
Tiptoes & Tappers Dance School

Live site

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More projects

Luana Hanson Interior Designer

Luana Hanson

Web design for West London interior designer

book-publishing-house-website-rude-by-design

Mardibooks

Web design, visual identity & art-working for the book publisher

All projects

Current status

Current Status

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently
—Rosa Luxemburg

Who I am, what I do, why I do it and how

Who

I’m Tony and I’m happy in my work. So happy that I really should declare myself a ‘passionate designer’ and throw up a cutesy mission statement expressing my undying love for the web, design, creativity and other creatives... or something.

I'm currently London-based, but you know, this is the web, so I have clients all over our ever-shrinking globe.

I've been working with the web for 10+ years and making images for longer, so if your requirements are not listed here they may still be doable. Shoot me a message.

What

People come to me looking for a ‘web guy’ or a ‘graphics guy’. And that’s fine. But a little clarity goes a long way online.

Marketing sits at the centre of any web presence today, and a website without a plan is an empty shell. It's the same offline, design proceeds from content and content proceeds from a concept.

So what’s the plan?

People without plans turn to Wix or Godaddy, set themselves up and wait... and sleep... and wait.

People with a plan know that the design they commission has a specific and measurable endgame.

Are you that person, the one who goes minimal white because it ‘looks cool’? Of course not, it’s why you’re here... ;)

See what I've done

Why

I do what I do for pleasure, love, self-empowerment and the thrill of sharing what I know to help others... before you throw up in your mouth I'll clarify:

  • Pleasure — Doing this feels more right than anything I’ve ever done. The enjoyment it provides swells like an expanding feedback loop; when you pleasure your muse, she’ll pleasure you right back, and then some...
  • Love — When I enter ‘the zone’ I change. Working my creativity gland gives me an altered sense of myself, my personal power increases. Not power over anything or anyone, but an amplified sense of pure well-being. I become other than me, more than me, I connect... with something.
  • Empowerment — Redundancy forced me to face the dark, the shear drop of the unknown. My sense of triumph, when it dawned that I could overcome that deep seated fear, was like a slow-motion dopamine rush. That's not a one-time deal. When you go solo the fear is always there, things could crash at any time, but managing it, learning to plan, pivot, think on your feet... it’s not just a job requirement, it's a life lesson.
  • Sharing — Creative gratification is just too great for one body, it’s like an empathy virus you have to pass on, you're compelled to give. The satisfaction gained in helping someone else whose struggle you completely understand becomes the best kind of legal high.
Read more about my why

How

Good design requires groundwork otherwise it’s just a shot in the dark. My first piece of advice to my post-redundant, fearful self, and, most of my clients:

have a vision.

You need to know what you really want and what it means to you. A clearly defined vision lifts your wanting above mere survival, it allows some dreaming to leak in. It becomes about what you desire to grow into. Having a clear idea of where you’re headed will also keep you anchored.

Then plug into your inherent difference by identifying your personal truth, your core values. This will give you power and leverage. Your version of truth won’t be for everyone but it doesn’t need to be. Another word for this is ‘authenticity’. Your authenticity helps to render you visible in a landscape of bland and is endlessly attractive to those who care about your kind of visibility.

Design tells your story by giving substance to these aspects of your personality. If this is sounding like a brand identity exercise it’s because that's the level you need to aspire to now. There are automated systems these days that throw together colours and shapes into generic eye candy. But the 'competency' this approach declares looks tired and defensive to our ever more educated, design-aware eyeballs.

How you show up becomes the difference between merely pleasing the eye or pleasing the mind. In other words strong design is, by definition, strategic. As we enter a post-industrial economy that thrives on connection, anything less would be just too ‘fake news’…

View a project

Why are you here? Where are you going? What do you want? I'd love to know your head trip — your crazed and aberrant vision of future you. Give me the down and dirty...

Say hi

You

I’m happy in my work. I could even declare myself a ‘passionate designer’ and throw up a cutesy mission statement about my undying love for the web, design, creativity and other creatives. But however much I dress it up I’m betting you don’t really give much of a crap about HTML, CSS, Wordpress, font foundries, colour theory… and the rest. And you’d be right. Don’t get me wrong I bleed that stuff, it’s my bread and butter, it puts food on my table and a smile in my mind. I've been known to spend my Friday nights font combining… for fun. But here’s the thing: no one actually gives a flying fuck about my font combining. To most non-designers, that’ll be most people, they’re just details and as important as it is to get the details right, it’s the bigger picture that’s truly compelling... which is this:

Why are you here? Where are you going? What do you want? I'd love to know your head trip — your crazed and aberrant vision of future you. Give me the down and dirty...

Say hi

About

I make websites, design identities and create custom art-working and illustration. Read about the services I provide, eyeball the work, or find out what I think.

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