Hiya. We're 628, a design and software studio with offices in Leicester and Huddersfield.
We build websites, custom software and the brands that go around them. Two founders, both hands-on, and a small team who would rather do fewer projects properly than lots of them badly.
This is the full tour. What we do, how we work, and who we're right for. Grab a brew.
Why we started
We were sick of watching agencies take the piss.
Between us we'd been around this industry a long time, and the pattern was hard to miss. Businesses paying real money for a template with their logo dropped in. Corners cut where the client would never think to look. Support that evaporated the day the invoice cleared.
The worst part was how normal it had become. Clients had been let down so consistently they'd stopped expecting anything else.
So 628 exists to be the studio those businesses should have hired the first time. That means no shortcuts, proper builds, and someone still answering the phone a year later. It also means we're here to make you money, because that is the actual job.
Who you'll actually work with
Luke looks after design, UX and strategy. Twelve years across frontend, UX, SEO and digital marketing, and the person who will ask you awkward questions in the first meeting.
Kryspin looks after architecture, code and infrastructure. Seven years building systems that have to stay standing under load, and the person who decides whether the clever idea is actually buildable.
You'll deal with both of us. Nobody gets sold to by a director and then handed to someone they've never met.
Everything we do
We group it into four, though most projects pull from more than one.
Design
Websites. Sites that are quick, clear and easy to get in touch through. Built on a CMS your team can genuinely use, so changing a paragraph never needs a developer.
UX and UI. Working out where people give up and designing it out. Nobody praises a site for being easy to use, they only notice when it isn't.
Digital products. Apps and platforms people use every day. A website has to convince someone once. A product has to work on the fortieth visit.
Conversion optimisation. You probably don't need more visitors. You need more of the ones you already have to reach the end.
Software
Custom software. The repetitive, manual work that eats your team's week, handed to a system instead. Owned outright by you, with no per-seat licence that grows every time you hire.
Web applications. Client portals, internal tools and subscription products. No installs, no version mismatches, just a URL and a login that works everywhere.
Business systems. Replacing the spreadsheet that quietly became load-bearing, and the shared inbox that is effectively a database.
Integrations. Joining up the six or seven systems you already pay for, so nobody spends their morning copying data between them.
AI
AI integration. The useful, boring kind. Search that understands plain English, drafts your team edits rather than writes, summaries of long threads.
AI automation. Reading invoices, sorting the inbox, pulling numbers out of documents. Easy work, endless, and expensive in people's time.
AI consultancy. Working out what is genuinely worth doing before you spend anything. Sometimes the honest answer is nothing yet, and that is a perfectly good outcome.
Growth
SEO. Getting found by people already looking for what you do. Honest reporting, no lock-in, no jargon.
Google Ads. Most accounts aren't short of budget. They're short of negative keywords, and nobody has checked the search terms report in months.
Ongoing support. Launch isn't the end. Someone who already knows your site, on hand when something needs doing.
How we work
Four stages, no mystery.
- Get to know it. Your business, your customers, and what this actually needs to achieve.
- Work it out. Structure and journeys agreed on paper, while changing them is still free.
- Make it. Design and build in step, tested as we go so problems surface early.
- Put it to work. We launch, then watch what real people do and improve from there.
The bit that matters is stage two. Design and development sit in the same conversation from the start, so what gets designed is what gets built. Handover is where most budgets quietly die.
Some of the work
TableCloud is a restaurant booking platform we did the brand, naming, UX and engineering for. Floor plans, live bookings and multiple restaurants, working on an iPad behind the bar mid-service.
ViewLoop was a digital signage product that didn't exist before we built it.
Pennine Gymnastics needed a booking system a club could actually run itself.
There's more on the projects page, including work for NextGen Industrial Doors, Halifax Steam and Spray Render.
Where we are
Leicester, at Dock on Exploration Drive. Huddersfield, at Brooke's Mill in Armitage Bridge.
We work with businesses across the Midlands, Yorkshire and a fair way beyond. Happy to meet in person if that helps, happy to keep it to a call if it doesn't.
The numbers we'll stand behind
55+ years of combined experience. 34+ projects launched. 88% of clients still working with us long after launch, which is the one we're proudest of because it's the one you can't fake.
5.0 on Google. 5.0 on Clutch.
Are we right for you?
Probably yes if you've outgrown a template, your team is doing work a system should be doing, or you've been let down before and want to deal directly with the people doing the work.
Probably not if you need a site next week for under £3k. That's a real requirement and there are studios who serve it well. We'd just be the wrong call, and we'll tell you that on the first phone call rather than waste your afternoon.
And the name?
People ask, and the answer is gloriously unstrategic: Luke was born at 6:28am.
That's it. No workshop, no rationale deck. Which feels about right, because we'd rather put that energy into your brand than into mythologising our own.
Fancy a chat? Tell us what you're planning. No pitch, no obligation, and we'll tell you honestly if we're not the right fit.
