Essay · October 14, 2026

What a river town remembers after the factories go quiet


Three generations explain how a place keeps its character once the work that built it has moved on. A report on memory, housing and the stubborn value of old brick.

By Hanna Okafor

Photographs by Tomas Reiner

14 minute read

Recent work for clients who publish a lot

Illustration of layered green hills below a terracotta sun

Transport

A help centre for a regional rail operator

Four hundred pages of timetable and ticket help, rebuilt as one guide with search that understands station names.

Read the case study on the rail help centre

Abstract composition of overlapping terracotta, green and grey panels

Housing

An annual report tenants actually open

Plain language, three clear charts and a print edition for the general assembly, all from the same set of pages.

Read the case study on the housing annual report

Still life of a green block, a terracotta circle and a grey triangle on a shelf

Publishing

Twelve years of a members’ magazine, online

Every issue since 2014 migrated and tagged, with a new issue template the editors run without outside help.

Read the case study on the magazine archive

Trusted by teams at

Tervane
Kolmar Works
Brinnel & Co
Halvera
Marlow Fenn

What clients can count on

Figures from our own project records, updated every January.

14

Years in practice

120+

Sites launched

87%

Clients who return for a second project

2 days

Typical reply time

Testimonials

Clients tend to stay. Here is why.

The brief said redesign. What we got was a site our twelve regional offices now update themselves, in one voice, without a single support ticket in the first quarter.

Ilse Brandt
Head of Digital, Halvera

Clear estimates, honest pushback and a launch on the date they named in the first week.

Tomás Reyes
Founder, Marlow Fenn

Our membership page used to be the slowest on the site. It is now the fastest, and almost twice as many visitors finish the form.

Annika Holm
Membership Manager, Tervane
Overlapping green, terracotta and grey rectangles on a fine paper grid

Case study · The Harbour Review

A smaller site, read twice as often.

How a regional magazine cut 1,400 pages down to 300 and rebuilt its archive around the questions readers actually search for.