Brand Strategy + Squarespace Website Design for a Music Coach
The Recordmaker’s Mind
He came looking for a prettier website. He left with a completely different business.
When Noel first reached out, he wasn't looking for a brand strategist. He wanted some help with his Squarespace site — a few design tweaks, maybe make it look a bit nicer. Fairly standard request. The kind I get every week.
Turns out the website wasn't the problem. It was just the symptom.
As we talked, I realised Noel wasn't struggling with design — he was struggling to explain what made him different. He'd introduce himself as a musician. Or a producer. Sometimes a coach. What he'd barely mention, almost as an afterthought, was that he'd spent years working as a psychotherapist.
To him, those were two separate worlds. To me, that was the whole business, sitting right there, mostly unmentioned.
The Thing He Was Hiding Was His Biggest Strength
The fact that he understood both music and psychology wasn't a footnote — it was the competitive advantage. There are thousands of people teaching recording techniques. Thousands more talking about songwriting. Very few understand what actually happens inside a musician's head when perfectionism and self-doubt hijack the creative process.
That's where Noel lives.
Not in music.
Not in therapy.
In the gap between the two — which, conveniently, nobody else was standing in.
Once we found that, everything else clicked into place. His positioning. His audience. His offers. Even his pricing — because once you realize you're offering something people can't find anywhere else, you stop pricing yourself like just another music coach with a Squarespace site and a dream.
Turning Strategy Into Design
Only then did we actually start designing.
Instead of another polished coaching website — the kind with a stock photo of someone laughing at a laptop — we built something that felt unmistakably like Noel. Like flipping through an old record collection: polaroids, handwritten notes, vintage textures, tape, album artwork, tiny imperfections…. The kind of details that feel collected over decades, not assembled over a weekend with a decent Pinterest board.
Every visual decision echoed the strategy underneath it. Distressed typography that reads like handwritten lyric sheets. Taped photographs that speak to memory and authenticity. A small bird that quietly turns up throughout the site as a nod to creative freedom. Even the slightly messy orange scribbles feel like ideas caught right before they slip away.
Nothing on this site is an accident. Which, ironically, takes an enormous amount of effort to pull off.
The Website Was Just the Evidence
Halfway through the project, Noel said something I'll probably remember for a long time: "I realised I had no idea what I was doing business-wise."
That sentence had nothing to do with Squarespace. Or branding. Or SEO. It's what happens when someone finally sees their own business clearly for the first time — a little disorienting, mostly a relief.
People often think they're hiring me to build a website. What they actually need, more often than not, is someone to help them uncover what makes their business impossible to compare. The website just ends up being the proof.
Built with
Brand Strategy
Positioning
Website Copywriting
Squarespace 7.1
Custom CSS & JavaScript
SEO Foundations
Mobile Optimisation
Your website might not be the problem.
Sometimes the real challenge is uncovering what makes your business genuinely different. Once that's clear, the design, messaging and marketing become a whole lot easier.