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Overpunch Studio

  • Design + development
  • Made in Vancouver

The whole studio fits on one card.

We sit where design meets the code that makes it real. There are two of us, we both design and we both build, and we like the complicated jobs best.

Partners
2
Since
2021
Where
Vancouver
Design
Us
Build
Us
Answer the emails
Us
Account managers
0

Mission

Overpunch is a design and development studio in Vancouver, built on the belief that work on a screen should feel as considered as something you can hold. We design it and we build it ourselves, so nothing gets lost between the drawing and the code.

It has been that way since Colby May and Quinn Keaveney started the studio in 2021: one of us trained in UX, the other as a typographer, both of us writing the code. That has taken us from two-person shops to Google and Shopify, and we still answer our own email.

Services

  • WebsitesDesigned here, or built from a design you already have. The big ones with a lot of pages and a lot of people to keep happy are fine by us.
  • Online storesShops with unusual rules: licences, tiers, renewals, the things an off-the-shelf cart won’t do.
  • Products and toolsWeb apps, dashboards and internal tools, with a real back end behind them.
  • Content systemsSet up so your team can change the site without calling us.
  • Type on screenFont stores, type testers and variable-font work. One of us is a trained typographer and it shows. The type tools we have published are in Loose Parts.
  • Care after launchFixes, new features, and someone who already knows how it was built.
Loose Parts 19: The type tools Overpunch has made and published, set out to pick up and try on real text.

Capabilities

Design

  • Strategy
  • UX and information architecture
  • Interface design
  • Motion and interaction
  • Design systems

Development

  • Front end
  • Back end and APIs
  • Content systems
  • E-commerce
  • Performance

Type

  • Type engineering
  • Variable fonts
  • Type testers
  • Font licensing

Teaching

  • Designing for screens
  • Design for Startups co-op
  • Mentoring

We both teach at Emily Carr University.

Approach

  • Give us the complicated partBig back ends and products with a lot of moving parts. The bit nobody is quite sure how to build is usually the bit we want.
  • You’ll see it working earlyIn a browser, rough edges and all. It’s much easier to talk about something you can click.
  • We’ll say when a design won’t work on screenKindly. Then we find a fix with whoever drew it.
  • We do the boring bits properlyThe error page. The email that says your order went through. Someone has to care about those.

Work with us

Careers

We are two people and we don’t hire often. When we do, it is someone who can design and build both. If that sounds like you, show us something you made.

Say hello

Internships

We teach, so we like students. If you are studying design or development and want time in a working studio, tell us what you want to learn.

Ask about an internship

Partners

  • Portrait of Colby May
    Colby MayPartner
  • Portrait of Quinn Keaveney
    Quinn KeaveneyPartner

Vancouver, Canada

Pacific Time. Write whenever; we read it in the morning.