Alec Farrugia: designer building brands — and the fast sites they live on.

I work with small Maltese businesses that have outgrown a Facebook page. Identity, website and the templates to keep posting — hand-coded, mobile-first, and live in weeks rather than quarters. Taking two projects at a time.

  • Based in Malta
  • Studio size One
  • Reply time Within 24h
Send an enquiry 24h reply

Tell me what you need.

No newsletter, no CRM. It goes straight to my inbox.

Selected work · 01

Brands, sites, and a few things I built to learn.

Four projects that show both halves of what I do — the identity, and the thing it ships inside.

01 — Brand & social

Copyquick

A print and copy shop whose sign had aged better than its marketing. Rebuilt the identity around navy, gold and a torn-paper motif that comes straight off the product, then turned it into a social system the counter staff can actually run.

  • Identity
  • Social templates
  • Print
02 — Brand & social

Optima Malta

A lighter, editorial counterpart to Copyquick: coral and rose on navy, generous white space, photography over graphics. Same studio, deliberately opposite voice — proof that a house style is a choice, not a habit.

  • Identity
  • Content calendar
  • Campaigns
03 — Writing & build

Torn·Down

My own publication. I take a real Maltese business’s website or socials apart in public, show what’s costing them customers, and redesign it. Built and deployed by me — the writing is the portfolio.

  • Editorial
  • Vite
  • Netlify
torndown.netlify.app
04 — Full-stack build

Habit Tracker

A React + Vite front end on a small Node and SQLite API, written to learn the parts of the stack a designer usually hands off. Auth, real persistence, and a streak calculation that survives timezones.

  • React
  • Node
  • SQLite
Yours could go here

Two slots open
this quarter.

I take on a small number of projects so each one gets the whole week, not a slice of it. Tell me what you’re working with and I’ll tell you honestly whether I’m the right person for it.

Start a project
The short version

Design that stops
at the .pdf
isn’t finished.

What I do · 02

Four ways to work together.

Brand identity

A look that survives contact with reality.

Logo, palette, type and the rules for using them — delivered as files your printer, your sign maker and whoever runs your Instagram can all open without calling me first.

  • Logo suite in every format you’ll be asked for
  • Palette and type with real usage rules
  • Social and print templates, editable
  • One guidelines PDF, short enough to read
2 – 4 weeksProject rate
Websites

Hand-coded. Loads on Maltese 4G.

Small marketing sites written by hand, not assembled in a page builder. Your menu, your hours and your prices in text a search engine can read — not trapped inside a photo album.

  • Up to 8 pages, designed on a phone first
  • Your own domain, deployed to Netlify
  • Real copy review before anything is built
  • 30 days of fixes after launch
3 – 5 weeksProject rate
Social systems

Templates, so you stop starting over.

Not a posting service. A set of templates, a month of planned content, and the captions to go with them — so posting is a ten-minute job for whoever is on shift.

  • Editable templates in your brand
  • A month of planned posts to start from
  • Captions and hashtags written, not sketched
  • A short handover call, recorded
1 – 2 weeksFlat fee
Build work

When it needs more than pages.

Booking forms, dashboards, small tools. React on the front, a small Node API and SQLite behind it. I’ll tell you plainly when something is past what one person should build.

  • React & Vite front ends
  • Node + SQLite APIs
  • You get the repository and the keys
  • Plain-English handover notes
Scoped per jobDay rate
How it runs · 03

Three phases. No mystery in between.

  1. Phase 01

    Call & scope

    Twenty minutes on the phone, then a one-page proposal with a fixed price, a date and exactly what you get. You sign it or you walk away — no follow-up sequence either way.

    Week 1
  2. Phase 02

    Design & build

    You see a real link, not a slideshow. It goes up early and changes in front of you, with a check-in twice a week. Two rounds of proper revisions are part of the price.

    Weeks 2 – 4
  3. Phase 03

    Handover & 30 days

    Your domain, your files, your logins — transferred, not rented. I stay on for thirty days to fix anything that drifts, and I’ll show you how to change the text yourself.

    Launch + 30
Alec Farrugia Valletta · 2026
Who you’d be hiring · 04

Meet Alec.

I’m a designer in Malta running a studio of one. I started on the brand side — identities, print, social for local businesses — and got tired of handing a beautiful PDF to someone who then had it rebuilt badly by somebody else.

So I learned to build. Now the same person who picks the colours writes the HTML, which means nothing gets lost in the translation and there’s exactly one person to call when something breaks.

I write about this in the open at Torn·Down, where I take real Maltese businesses’ marketing apart and rebuild it. It’s the clearest picture of how I think you’ll find anywhere.

Based in
Malta · working remotely
Studio size
One · and proud
Typical project
2 – 5 weeks
Currently taking
2 / quarter
How I work · 05

Things I won’t talk you out of.

No templates. If two of my clients can spot the same layout, I’ve done it wrong.

On originality

You own the domain, the repository and every login. I rent you nothing.

On ownership

Copy first, colour second. Nobody ever left because the blue was wrong.

On priorities

Designed on a phone at 390px, then scaled up. That’s where your customers are.

On mobile

Fast on 4G in Gozo, not just on my laptop on fibre.

On performance

Your menu belongs in text a search engine can read, not inside a JPEG.

On being found

One person, start to finish. No account manager between you and the work.

On the studio

If you can’t change the opening hours yourself, I built it badly.

On handover

A fixed price and a date, agreed before I start. Scope changes are a conversation, not an invoice.

On money

I’ll tell you when you don’t need a new website. It happens more than you’d think.

On honesty
Writing · 06

Torn·Down.

I pull a real Maltese business’s marketing apart, show what it’s costing them, and rebuild it. Nothing hypothetical.

Read all teardowns
Questions · 07

Asked before you ask it.

If yours isn’t here, email me. I answer these properly, not with a brochure.

What does a website actually cost?

It depends on how many pages and how much of the copy and photography already exists. You get a fixed number after a twenty-minute call — one price, in writing, before anything starts. No hourly surprises.

Do you work with WordPress or Wix?

I don’t build new sites on them. I write the HTML and CSS by hand, which is why the pages load quickly and don’t break when a plugin updates. If you’re already on WordPress and it’s working, I’ll say so rather than sell you a migration.

Can I hire you for just the brand, or just the site?

Yes, both happen regularly. Brand-only comes with files any developer can build from. Site-only works best if you already have a logo and palette you’re happy with — if you’re not, we should talk about that first.

Who owns the files when we’re done?

You do. The domain is registered in your name, the code is handed over in full, and every login is transferred to you. Nothing is held hostage to keep you paying a monthly fee.

What happens after launch?

Thirty days of fixes are included — anything broken, wrong or drifting gets sorted at no extra cost. After that you can either edit the text yourself (I’ll show you how) or send me small jobs as they come up.

Are you available right now?

I keep two project slots open per quarter so nothing gets rushed. Send the form and I’ll tell you honestly what the next start date is — including if that means recommending someone else.

Last thing

Tell me what’s
not working.

A twenty-minute call, a straight answer, and a fixed price if it’s a fit. If it isn’t, I’ll say that too.