I'm Alex. I build proper websites for small businesses in Swanage, the Purbecks and across Dorset — holiday lets, cafés, festivals, distilleries, trades, anyone with customers.
Nearly twenty years of experience. Local enough to meet for a coffee in Swanage; experienced enough that you don't have to worry about what you're getting.
Most small websites are WordPress, Wix or Squarespace — easy to start, hard to live with. Here's what you get instead.
No WordPress themes, no Wix templates, no Elementor drag-and-drop. Every site is built from scratch in modern code, which means it's faster, more accessible, and easier to evolve when your business changes.
The code, the domain, the hosting account — all in your name. If you ever want to take it to someone else, you can. No lock-in, no proprietary CMS, no "we host it for you" hostage situation.
I pick up the phone, write the code, and answer the support email. No account managers, no offshore subcontractors, no handoffs. Whoever you're emailing on day one is the person fixing it on day two hundred.
Based in Swanage, working with businesses across Purbeck and Dorset — but with nearly twenty years of experience. You get someone you can meet for a coffee who also knows what they're doing at scale.
A short list — deliberately. A sea shanty festival in Swanage, a website-builder I made for bands, and a small distillery in Australia.
A one-day sea shanty festival in Swanage, Dorset — twelve crews, two stages, one November Saturday at The Mowlem on the seafront.
A brand-new community festival that needed everything — logo, branding and a fast, accessible site with nothing for the organisers to wrestle with. Change a set time in one place and every list, count and schedule on the site updates itself.
Read the full case study
A website-builder I built specifically for bands, because the alternatives were either generic profile pages or full-fat website builders that didn't understand bands.
Bands have specific needs — tour dates, music players, press kits, mailing lists, photos, video — and most platforms either bury those behind a hundred features they don't need, or skip them entirely. So I built one that does the band stuff properly and ignores the rest.
Read the full case study
A small Tasmanian distillery doing things their own way — and selling the results online.
I built Deviant's online shop from scratch — product pages, age-gating, stock management, the lot. The brand had real personality and I wanted the site to feel like the bottle in your hand, not a generic Shopify template.
"pixel61 built a bespoke ecommerce site from the ground up for my business. Their service was professional, efficient, and reliable and the end result was truly fantastic. I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a quality and user-friendly business site, and will definitely use pixel61 again next time I need to build a website."
I'm Alex. I pick up the phone, write the code, and answer the support email. No team behind a curtain. No account managers. No 47-page briefing document.
I've been building across small sites, large-scale software, design systems, and internal tools for nearly twenty years. Startup, agency, corporate — senior roles by day, solo work alongside it. It means whatever you need from a website, chances are I've built something like it before and can get you there without the guesswork.
When I'm not at the keyboard I'm playing drums, playing in a band, building something, chasing my kids around, or finding a way to bring up Australia in conversation (I lived there, I miss it, sorry in advance).
If you want the proper CV-style "twenty years of frameworks and clients" version, that lives over at devcalledalex.com. This site is for hiring me to actually build something.
devcalledalex.comThe stuff small-business buyers actually email me about. Answered up front so you don't have to.
Yes, completely. The code is yours, the design is yours, the domain is yours. If you ever want to take it elsewhere, just ask — I'll hand over everything you need to move it. No lock-in, no hostage situation.
Depends what "edit" means, and on whether we build you an admin area — some sites need one, plenty genuinely don't. If we do: swap a photo, change a price, add a news post, all yours, and I'll show you how. Redesign the whole homepage — that's more of a job than an edit, so that one usually comes back to me.
Fair question, asked surprisingly often. Your site lives on hosting in your name, the code is yours, and there's a handover document with everything any other developer would need to pick it up. The whole thing is built with popular, well-supported frameworks rather than anything I've invented myself, so you're not stuck with a one-of-a-kind setup only I understand. Bus or no bus, you keep the site.
Not even slightly. Most of my clients aren't technical. I'll never make you "log into the cPanel" or send you a JSON file. If something needs to happen, I'll either do it for you or write you a one-page guide with screenshots.
Usually 50% up front and 50% on launch, by UK bank transfer, with 14 days on the invoice. That's just the default though — if spreading it out differently suits you better, say so and we'll sort something that works. If you want me looking after the site once it's live, that's a separate monthly thing — direct debit or standing order, cancel anytime.
No. pixel61 ltd isn't VAT-registered, so what you see is what you pay. (If that ever changes, the pricing here will be updated and the FAQ will say so.)
Yes. I do the proper basics on every site — page titles, descriptions, a sitemap, fast load times, and the behind-the-scenes info that tells Google exactly what your business is. That gets you found when someone searches for your business name or "[your-thing] in [your-town]", which is what most small-business customers are actually doing. What I don't do is promise you'll rank #1 for "web designer" or "best plumber" against people who've spent years and tens of thousands on SEO. Anyone who promises that is selling you something else.
Honestly? Usually no. Most of the time it's quicker, cheaper and better for both of us to start fresh on a small site than wrestle with someone else's old code. If you really want me to look at an existing site, I will — but I'll tell you straight if a rebuild is the better call.
Festival, band, café, distillery, holiday let, anything. Fill in the boxes and hit send — none of it is required, the more you tell me the more useful my reply will be. Comes straight to my inbox, no team, no triage.
Prefer a quick chat first? Book a 30-minute call
Or skip the form and email me directly: hello@pixel61.com
If it helps, here's what to include
None of it is required, but the more you tell me up front, the more useful my reply will be:
I'll come back with either "yes, let's do it, here's how" or "no, here's why, here's who I'd point you at instead". Both are useful — neither will take a week to land in your inbox.