December Feels Weird as a Designer
The inbox slows down.
Clients disappear.
Projects stall.
And if you’re ambitious, that silence messes with your head.
You feel guilty for resting.
Anxious about income.
Tempted to hustle just to feel productive.
But here’s the truth most designers miss.
December isn’t broken.
Your expectations are.
Clarity Beats Chaos Every Time
This is where structure matters.
From the client’s Google Doc or Notion Doc, I don’t pull everything.
I extract only what matters.
Not 40 pages.
Just the essentials.
1. The Story and Purpose
The client exists to make the NDIS simple, personal, and human.
They stand for:
Dignity
Independence
Belonging
Clarity
Their message is simple.
No limitation. Endless opportunity.
2. Target Audience
People living with disability.
Families.
Support coordinators.
Allied health professionals.
What they need:
Warmth
Confidence
Trust
Clear pathways
Simple next steps
3. What the Website Must Achieve
The site needs to:
Build trust
Explain services clearly
Offer referral and enquiry pathways
Feel warm, supportive, and human
Show personality that feels uplifting, progressive, and approachable
4. Brand Experience Keywords
Warm.
Personal.
Empowering.
Simple navigation.
Easy to read.
Accessible.
5. What Success Looks Like
More enquiries.
Higher conversions.
Strong community recognition.
That’s it.
Clear inputs lead to confident design.
The faster you extract clarity, the faster you can move.
The One-Page Proposal
Speed starts before you design anything.
I don’t waste time on fancy PDFs.
I use a simple one-page Notion proposal that outlines:
Scope
Deliverables
Timeline
Three offer options
Contact details
The top offer always reflects the true level of impact the client actually needs.
A clean proposal like this removes friction, gets approved faster, and protects you from scope creep later.
Brand Exploration With Moodboards
Tight deadlines don’t mean skipping exploration.
If you skip this phase, you design slower because you second-guess everything.
I pulled references from:
Behance
Dribbble
Cosmos
My own archive
Then built three clear visual directions showing:
Colours
Typography
Imagery tone
Layout patterns
Brand personality traits
Moodboards are not decoration.
They’re alignment tools.
Once a client says, “This feels like us,” the rest becomes inevitable.
Exploration reduces revisions, removes surprises, and speeds up decisions.
I also used Recraft AI to generate visual textures and supporting elements.
Not final assets.
Just creative sparks to shape direction.
Choosing the Right Framer Template
Templates are not shortcuts.
They’re foundations.
I chose a Framer template with strong structure, clean layout patterns, and flexible sections.
This instantly removed:
Dev handoff
Component setup
Layout guesswork
Time-wasting rebuilds
A solid starting point doubles speed without reducing quality.
Framer Development Done the Smart Way
In Framer, design and development become one process.
Here’s the workflow:
Start with the Styles Page
Colours, typography, spacing, link stylesBuild consistent sections using prebuilt templates
Navigation, footer, hero blocksApply the visual identity globally so every page feels cohesive
Add subtle animations
Appear effects, scroll transforms, micro-movements
I also used tools I rely on often.
Phosphor Icons, component libraries, and Framer add-ons that speed up structure without sacrificing craft.
The result is a polished site built in days, not weeks.
Underpromise, Overdeliver
Core design and development were done in 3 to 4 days.
The only delay was content.
So we launched with three key pages and will add more soon.
This is normal.
This is predictable.
This is why systems must be flexible.
I also created extra brand materials like A4 flyers and brochures so the rollout felt complete.
Animations.
Interactions.
Clean typography.
Custom visuals.
Small touches make work feel premium, even on tight timelines.
I also implemented Cookiebot for compliance and consent management.
Launch Day
We hit publish.
Connected DNS.
Checked performance via GTmetrix.
Everything was fast, clean, and responsive.
A high-quality website delivered in about a week.
Not rushed.
Not sloppy.
Just structured.
What You Should Take From This
A one-week website isn’t magic.
It’s the result of a system that removes friction at every stage.
The real formula:
Clear discovery
One-page proposal
Quick alignment through moodboards
Template-based structure
Framer for design and development
AI for acceleration, not replacement
Underpromise, overdeliver
Do this consistently and clients will trust you, pay you more, and refer you faster.
If you want the tools to build websites this fast, my Framer course shows you how to build your own portfolio site and cut months off the learning curve.
Would you try delivering a full client website in one week if you had a system like this?




