Web design and development

Most agency websites are the same template with a different logo. We don't build those.

We design a Riv Lux site from your actual business (what you sell, who buys it, what they need to believe before they act) and then hand-build it in real code. There's no page builder or theme involved, and no 4MB of plugin JavaScript loading before anyone sees a word.

What you get

Running a local service business? See our guide to one-page and small-business website scopes.

• A custom design. Type, colour, motion, and layout are chosen for your brand instead of inherited from a marketplace theme.
• A hand-written front-end in semantic HTML and modern CSS, without the framework tax. Our sites hit Core Web Vitals because they're small to begin with, so they don't need optimising after the fact.
• Content that does a job. We write or rewrite the copy so each page argues for one thing.
• A search-ready structure: server-rendered HTML, structured data, clean URLs, and an information architecture where each page targets one intent.
• A bilingual site if you need one, with the copy written in both English and Spanish (details here).
• A site you can actually update. We hand over something you can run, and we document it.

Why hand-built beats a page builder

Page builders are excellent at getting something live this week. They're bad at three things that matter later:

1. Weight. A typical builder site ships 2–4MB before first paint. Ours ship under 300KB. That's the difference between passing and failing Core Web Vitals on a phone on a subway.
2. Ownership. When the platform changes its pricing or deprecates a widget, a builder site is their problem to solve and your problem to pay for.
3. Ceiling. Builders stop at anything genuinely custom, like a configurator, a real-time visual, or an unusual interaction. That's where we start.

The trade-off is honest: hand-built costs more up front and takes longer, so if you need a five-page brochure site live on Friday, a builder is the right call and we'll say so.

Proof

Every project in our work is live. All but one of them were ours end to end, from design and engineering through launch, and the one exception is labelled as a collaboration. Some notable ones:

• News4You (client): local journalism with a membership system on a modern stack.
• DonFixYou (client): a focused one-page site for a local handyman service, with clear proof and a direct path to contact.
• PourPlay (client): a wine education platform with a 690-bottle catalog and a live game layer.
• Cuyar is our own: a bilingual movement app for adults over 65, built as an installable PWA with offline audio coaching.

And this site: its homepage renders 110,000 particles live on desktop, and none of it is video.

For a deeper look at what a website does beyond promotion, read why local businesses need an online presence in 2026.

How long it takes

A brand site is typically 6–12 weeks from signed brief to launch. Two things move that number: how ready your content is, and how many people have to approve each round.

Projects where the client has copy, photography, and one decision-maker land at the short end, and projects waiting on a photoshoot land at the long end.

What it costs

One-page websites start at $500 USD for a defined base scope with your supplied content. Larger websites are scoped by page count and complexity. Copywriting, extra languages, integrations, and ongoing care are separate options. See the base packages and add-ons or request a short quote.

Common questions

Do I need to have my content ready before we start? No, but it's the single biggest thing that decides how fast the project goes. If you don't have copy, we write it, and that writing is a scoped part of the project from the start.

Who owns the code? You do, on final payment. You get the repository.

Do you host it? We deploy to Vercel or Netlify under your account, so the hosting relationship is yours. We aren't a reseller, and we don't mark up hosting.

What happens after launch? Thirty days of fixes are included. After that, we work on a small monthly retainer or ad hoc. It's your choice, with no lock-in.

Can you make my existing site faster instead of rebuilding it? Sometimes. We can quote performance work on someone else's codebase, but we look at it first. If the answer is "this needs a rebuild", we'll tell you before you spend money.