← Back to the Northlight siteCase study · Website + simple app
Design, product and engineering, one studio.
Northlight is a fictional voice coaching studio. Common Tongue built its site the way we build for real clients: one team shaping how it looks, deciding what it should do, and writing the code that runs it. No handoffs between three vendors, and nothing lost in translation.
01Design
A look that feels like the coaching
Calm and confident after dark, like the northern lights the studio is named for.
- Midnight palette with one aurora-green accent, every text color checked for contrast
- Bricolage Grotesque for headlines, DM Sans for reading, Space Mono for labels
- Visual idea: a rushed voice vs. a steady one, shown as two waveforms
- Every layout drawn mobile-first, since most visitors arrive from a phone
02Product
Booking in about a minute
The job of the site is to turn a nervous visitor into a booked first session. Everything else supports that.
- One path: pick a session, pick a time, answer three questions
- Intake questions chosen with the coach: only what she reads before a session
- Program cards jump straight into booking with that session already picked
- A live summary of the booking stays on screen, so nobody loses their place
03Engineering
Fast, accessible and easy to hand over
Plain, well-known tools the client owns, so any developer can pick it up later.
- Next.js and TypeScript on Vercel, with server-side validation for every booking
- Times shown in the visitor's own timezone, plus an Add to calendar file
- Keyboard and screen-reader friendly: real labels, focus moves with each step
- Ready to connect a calendar, payments and confirmation email when the studio is
A build like this takes about three weeks.
- Week 1Kickoff, intake questions and visual direction. Two design options on a live link.
- Week 2Full site built from the chosen direction. Booking flow working end to end.
- Week 3Copy polish, accessibility pass, launch. Handover call and a plain-English guide.
Want one of these?
Websites and simple apps start at $3,000. You own the code, the hosting and the domain.