pixel61/Web design in Swanage

Web design in Swanage, Dorset.

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.

See recent work Have a chat

Why a local developer beats a template.

Most small websites are WordPress, Wix or Squarespace — easy to start, hard to live with. Here's what you get instead.

Built bespoke, not bolted together.

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.

You own everything.

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.

One person, start to finish.

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.

Local, but not parochial.

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.

Who this is for.

Holiday lets and B&Bs in Swanage, Studland and across the Purbecks
Cafés, restaurants and pubs that need bookings, menus and easy updates
Festivals and events along the Jurassic Coast
Local trades and service businesses tired of a 2010 WordPress site
Independent shops, distilleries and makers selling online
Bands, venues and creatives who want something that doesn't look like everyone else's

Some of what I've built

A short list — deliberately. A three-day rock festival, a website-builder I made for bands, and a small distillery in Australia.

01·

Festival·Multi-stage·Ticketing

Pleasure Beach Rocks

pleasurebeachrocks.co.uk

A three-day rock festival in Blackpool — 17 tribute acts, 12 original artists, and three nights at the Big Blue Hotel bundled into the ticket.

This one's a working festival site for a working festival. Everyone arrives Friday and leaves Sunday, so the whole ticketing flow is built around weekend packages rather than day tickets — accommodation, lineup, schedule and checkout all on one site, all working together.

Read the full case study

02·

Music industry·SaaS·Solo build

Band Me Up

bandmeup.com

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, EPKs, 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

03·

E-commerce·Hospitality·Custom build

Deviant Distillery

deviantdistillery.com

A small 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."
— John Hyslop, Deviant Distillery

Read the full case study

Who you're actually hiring

Alex / pixel61 ltd

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.com

BasedSwanage, Dorset

Working since2007

Client locationsUnited Kingdom, Australia

Questions you might have

The stuff small-business buyers actually email me about. Answered up front so you don't have to.

01Do I own the site?

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.

02I'm not technical at all. Is that a problem?

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.

03How does payment work?

50% deposit to start, 50% on launch. UK bank transfer. Invoice has clear terms, payment is due within 14 days. For the Care Plan it's monthly direct debit / standing order, cancel anytime.

04Is the price plus VAT?

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.)

05Will my site show up on Google?

Yes. I do the proper basics on every site — page titles, descriptions, sitemap, structured data, fast load times. 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.

06Can you fix / redesign my existing site instead of starting fresh?

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.

Want to chat about a site?

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.

Get in touch

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:

01Roughly what you're building.A holiday let? A café? A festival? Something else?
02Any sites you like the look of?(yours or anyone else's) — saves a thousand words.
03What's driving the timingLaunching something? Old site embarrassing you? Festival in October?
04A rough budgetIf you've got one. The packages page should tell you what mine cost — if those numbers feel about right, just say "Standard tier-ish" and we're sorted.

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.