About
One person, and that is the whole studio
No account manager, no handoff, nobody I quietly subcontract to. If you email me, I am the one who answers
- Based in
- Athens, TN
- Working with
- Clients anywhere
- Day job
- Quality assurance, six years
The long version
About Aston Cook
For six years my job has been quality assurance. Somebody builds a thing, and I find the way it falls over before a real person does. Wrong screen size, slow connection, form filled in the order nobody expected
That turns out to be a useful way to build a website. Most sites are only ever checked by their designer, on their designer's laptop. Yours gets checked the way I would check software I was paid to break
I started building for wedding vendors because my wife runs one. I watched what the platforms cost her over a year, and decided that should not be her problem
How I work
Four things you can hold me to
Not values. Each of these is something you would notice if I stopped doing it
I write it before I design it
You get the whole site as plain text first. Much easier to say a paragraph is wrong before it looks finished
You see the real thing, not a picture of it
No mockups. A preview link you can open on your own phone while I build it
I say when I am not the right answer
If what you need is a booking tool you already like, or a photographer before a website, I will say so
Nothing is held hostage
The domain is in your name and you get every login. There is nothing I can switch off
Evidence
Two sites you can open right now
Neither of these is a concept and neither is behind a login. Click around and see whether the work matches the claims
Shea Cook Beauty
Bridal makeup artist and spray tanning, Athens, TN
Service pages, a portfolio, and two booking paths. Brides inquire, spray tan clients book straight into the calendar
AssertHired
Interview practice for software testers
My own product, built and run solo. Accounts, payments, scoring, and a dashboard behind it all
Questions
Things people are too polite to ask
- Do you only work with wedding vendors
- No, but it is most of what I do. Makeup artists, photographers, venues, planners. Any other small business, same work and same price
- Do we have to meet in person
- No. Almost all of it happens over a call and email. I am in East Tennessee if you would rather sit down
- How many projects do you take at once
- Two or three. I do every part myself, so there is a real ceiling
Start a project
Say hello
You are emailing a person, not a form. I read all of these myself and I answer every one
What happens after you send it
- It lands in my inbox, not an assistant and not a shared account
- You get a real reply within one business day, even if the answer is no
- If it looks like a fit, we book a thirty minute call. No slide deck