DrayBird Designs

25/09/2026

Sometimes a website rebuild isn't all about how a website looks.

Sometimes it's about finally making the blooming thing WORK for the business using it.

I've been rather busy behind the scenes with Four Seasons Composts, and Phase 1 of its rebuild is now live.

On the surface, selling bags of compost online sounds fairly straightforward.

It isn't. 😂

A customer might want one bag sent by parcel.
Or several bags.
Or enough to make a pallet worthwhile.
They might live close enough for Four Seasons Composts to deliver it themselves.
They might want to collect.
Their postcode might fall into a completely different carrier rate area.
And some products aren't bags of compost at all.

The old answer was a collection of plugins, shipping zones, tables and workarounds — all trying to persuade WooCommerce to understand a business that doesn't fit neatly into a standard postage box.

So we've stopped persuading it.

Instead, I've been building the tools around the way Four Seasons Composts actually works.

Phase 1 includes a purpose-built shipping system that can work out the sensible options for the customer's actual order and destination, compare parcel, pallet and local delivery where appropriate, keep collection separate, and give the customer useful information before they get all the way to checkout.

Behind the scenes there's a proper testing and management toolkit too, because there's no point making something easier for the customer if it's still a pain in the backside for the person running the business.

And while we were there… we've been stripping out some of the accumulated website clutter, tidying the customer journey and laying the foundations for everything else that's coming next.

This is exactly where I want DrayBird Designs to sit.

Not just building websites that look nice.

Building practical, affordable websites and tools around small businesses — particularly the slightly awkward ones where an off-the-shelf solution gets you 80% of the way there and leaves you swearing at the remaining 20%.

Because quite often that 20% is the bit that matters most.

Phase 1: nearly there.

And yes, there are already Phases 2, 3 and probably several instances of "whilst we'm yer..." waiting in the wings. 🤣

DrayBird Designs -
Websites built around the business — not the other way round.

From compost and growing essentials to practical finds for home and outdoors — have a look around and see what you discover.

22/09/2026

🍎 NEW WEBSITE LIVE – BRENDON ORCHARDS COOPERATIVE 🍎

This one feels a little bit special.

I've been involved with Brendon Orchards Cooperative since 2014, originally as their Apple Press Manager, so when I built BOC a new website around six years ago, I already knew the organisation pretty well from the inside.

At the time, that site was a huge step forward from what had been there before – and it has served BOC well ever since.

But six years is a long time in websites.

BOC has evolved, the amount of information on the site has grown, technology has moved on enormously – and, rather importantly, so has DrayBird Designs.

This hasn't simply been a case of making the old one prettier. The new Brendon Orchards site has been rebuilt from the ground up around how the cooperative actually works today.

Content has been reorganised, navigation simplified, hire information completely reworked, community activities brought together and resources made much easier to find – including a rather lovely virtual bookshelf for BOC's collection of apple knowledge, recipes and useful information. 📚🍏

It's responsive, accessible, considerably easier and cheaper for a volunteer-run organisation to maintain, and there's been quite a bit of bespoke development behind the scenes too.

Because apparently six years later I still can't encounter an awkward bit of website administration without thinking, "surely we can make that easier…" 🙈😂

Perhaps the nicest part for me is that although I moved away in 2021 and passed the Apple Press Manager baton on, I've been able to remain involved with BOC through the website, administration and enquiries.

So this wasn't a case of coming back to an old client six years later.

It's rebuilding a website for a community I've been part of for twelve years, full of people who've become friends along the way.

And it's also rather satisfying being able to look at the website I built six years ago, look at what I've built for them now, and see just how far DrayBird Designs has come too.

Same cooperative. Same community. Same slightly ridiculous enthusiasm for apples. A very different website. 🍎🍏

The new Brendon Orchards Co-Operative website is LIVE. 🎉

Another one off the rebuild list. ✔️

Now… on to my next one, which also has a fairly major restructuring plan already in the pipeline 🙈😂

DrayBird Designs Websites that work for the people who actually have to use them.

Juicing equipment, community pressing, orchard skills and locally produced apple juice — helping you make the most of your fruit.

10/09/2026

There’s rather a lot happening at DrayBird Designs at the moment… 🐦

I’ve shared a few snippets recently, but when I actually stopped and looked at what I’ve been working on, I realised just how varied it has become!

Crafting by Steph has just had a complete website rebuild and is now live — a cleaner, lighter WordPress site that keeps Steph’s personality and existing branding, while making the site much easier to manage. There’s also a new events and booking system built specifically around what she needs.

Azimuth Fields is at the other end of the scale — a simple Digital Business Card. Not every business needs a huge website; sometimes you just need a professional presence online, somewhere for people to find out what you do and a straightforward way to get in touch.

YOLK started life because I needed a better way of managing egg subscriptions here at Western Farm. It has since grown into a proper WordPress system for managing customers, egg balances, top-ups, collections and all the bits and pieces that go with them. 🥚

And DrayBird isn’t only about websites. The Brendon Orchards banner is a rather more physical example of my design work — and considerably harder to fit on a computer screen! 🍎

Four very different projects, but that's actually rather a good illustration of what I enjoy doing most: taking an idea, working out what it really needs, and finding a practical way to bring it to life.

Sometimes that's a website. Sometimes it's bespoke WordPress functionality. Sometimes it's graphic design. And sometimes it's an idea that starts with “I wonder if I could…” and turns into something rather bigger than originally intended. 😂

DrayBird Designs — Ideas to Life. 🐦

19/08/2026

So, I've been a bit quiet on this page for a very long time and then, a bit like buses, suddenly I've got 2 posts in just a few days!!

This one is something I've been working on for at least 6 months... well, I did a lot over the winter, then had a break while we were dealing with lambs, and have now come back to get it finished and usable!

I've done a thing. A thing I would never have imagined possible a year ago — I've built a plugin from scratch.

It started with a very practical problem here at Western Farm, Kingsdon; Including Ruffles Hen Hotels. We have a loyal little group of regular egg customers who pre-pay for their eggs, and keeping track of everyone's balances, orders and collections was becoming an increasingly chaotic collection of spreadsheets and messages from multiple sources.

So I decided there had to be a better way... and built one after struggling to make sense of using available plugins to make them do what I needed.

YOLK gives our regular customers their own little app where they can see how many eggs they have in credit, top up their balance, request collections and keep track of everything themselves. At our end, it gives me one place to manage the whole lot without disappearing into spreadsheet hell.

It went live today — and it works! 🎉

I'm actually really rather proud of this one, not least because it's grown from solving a very specific problem on our own farm into something that I think could potentially be useful to other small farms and egg producers running similar pre-pay or regular-customer schemes.

And it's also reminded me how much I enjoy building websites and solving those awkward little "there must be a better way of doing this" problems with them.

So, if you're an egg producer thinking “I could use something like that”, a local egg buyer who rather likes the sound of YOLK ( https://westernfarmkingsdon.co.uk/yolk-subscription/ ), or you've got a small business with an irritating website problem you wish somebody could make go away... feel free to give me a shout.

I'm rather curious to see where this one goes. 🥚

15/08/2026

This post is a little late coming, I spent several weeks last year designing a new promotional banner, along with 2 A3 posters and a 3 fold leaflet for Brendon Orchards Co-Operative, finally got to see them in real life today 😀
Currently working on an updated version of the Brendon Orchards website which I will share in due course.