The company that explained itself better got the deal.
You never found out that’s what happened. Buyers compare before they ever contact you, and the clearer case wins more often than the better company does. I fix the case. First we decide what you’re actually selling and who it’s for, then I direct the brand, website, and message, hands-on, until all three say the same thing.
25 years in brand, web, and product design
School of Visual Arts, New York
Design work trusted by teams at
Microsoft
Strategy and brand work trusted by owner-led companies like
Maat Holdings · Schropp
The gap
The work is strong. Reputation hasn't caught up yet.
You explain your business better in one conversation than your website does in ten pages. That gap shows up in three familiar ways.
01
“We're launching, and it has to land.”
Investors, first hires, and first clients all form their view early, and it’s expensive to launch twice.
02
Our work is premium. Our brand doesn't reflect it.
You get compared on price, because nothing you put in front of people says you shouldn’t be.
03
We changed. How we show up didn't.
A pivot, a raise, a new market. Buyers are still hearing yesterday’s company.
A redesign won’t fix any of this on its own. What’s missing is a decision, not more effort or better taste. Without it, a new website says the same unclear thing in better fonts.
The method
The hardest design problem isn't visual.
Most of what decides whether this works happens before anything gets drawn.
01
See
I ask until the real offer, audience, and message come out. Most owners haven’t put it into words in years.
02
Decide
The position gets named, and everything that contradicts it gets cut. Most of the real work happens right here.
03
Build
Identity, website, and message become one system, not separate pieces. I direct senior designers, developers, and writers, hands-on until it’s right.
04
Adapt
Markets move after launch. With ongoing direction, your brand moves with them instead of aging in place.
Proof
The obvious move was wrong all three times.
Storage and IoT
Powered Storage
2018 to present
One facility, one brand, and customers with nothing in common. Somebody looking for a place to work was never going to search for storage. The call was to split the brand along what each customer actually searches for, one operation underneath. The property went from empty to eighty percent occupied, and new brands keep splitting off it as demand shows which offer belongs to which buyer.
“Zoltán makes the calls, not just the designs. Five brands in, that’s saved us money and a few nightmares.”
— Eric Davis, CEO, Maat Holdings
Fintech
A digital payments platform
Anonymized at client request
Two buyers who looked nothing alike. Banks that wanted to become tech enabled, and brands that wanted to issue their own cards. The call was one system both could see themselves in, instead of two brands and two pitches. Banks put it into production. Gas station chains issued their own cards on it. Investors backed the same story for $30M.
Anonymized, per client request. No client name attached.
Schropp · Haso · CapLid
Sustainable packaging
Three companies had a better product. All three were losing to plastic. Schropp in Germany, Haso in Japan, CapLid in Switzerland, and the same call made all three times: stop selling the environment, sell the regulation, the engineering, and the cost of switching.
“We had the product. We didn’t have the words for it. Zoltán gave us a value proposition we could launch with, and it’s still what we lead with.”
— Sven Schropp, CEO, Schropp GmbH & Co.
Real estate
Crystalcore
Fifty templates, one system, two hundred sites later, still running. A productized design system that let a web company serve a whole market it couldn’t previously afford to serve.
“Fifteen years, and I’d take him back tomorrow. Zoltán didn’t ask for more designers, he designed the system that’s still running two hundred sites later.”
— Mike Ciesinsky, CEO, Crystalcore.net
Where to start
Three shapes the work takes. One method behind all of them.
Tier 1
Clarity Sprint
Two weeks. Fixed price. Your positioning, message, and direction, decided and documented. Yours to keep and build with, with or without me.
Brand & Build
Scoped per project. Identity, website, marketing assets, directed as one system. One person accountable, so nothing gets lost between vendors.
Tier 3
Ongoing Ownership
Fixed monthly retainer. What you build decays unless someone owns it. I stay on and keep it moving, deciding rather than handing you options.
The close
You already know something isn't landing.
You’ve probably known for a while. What you don’t know is whether it’s the message, the brand, or the website, and guessing at it costs more than asking.
Thirty minutes, no deck, no pitch. Afterwards you get it in writing: what’s actually wrong, what it would take to fix, and which of the three above it points to. If the answer is that you don’t need me, I’ll tell you that too.
You already know something isn't landing.
If your brand, website, or message hasn’t caught up to what your company actually does, let’s talk.
Based in
Budapest
Working in
English and Hungarian
Founded
2019