Mr & Mrs OK
Hello and welcome, Mr & Mrs OK is a tiny digital design consultancy based in Oxford. We work with clients all over the world.
We make thoughtful, elegant products designed to live on the web. We also love to do illustrations.
Our clients include
We think one of our clients sums us up best...
“When I first encountered Mr & Mrs OK I thought I was hiring a talented design team. I was right, in that the responsive site they have delivered for the Rationalist Association is modern, beautiful and a wonderful platform for our content and our aspirations for engagement with our members. What I hadn’t realised was that I also got a skilled project management and strategic planning team who would - in their friendly and flexible way - get to the heart of our strategic aims, involve all stakeholders (including my board and users) in the design process, and help to unblock and bring to fruition our own latent creativity and ideas. The work they have done has had a profound impact on every aspect of our business, and what we have learnt from working with them will help structure our strategic planning for years to come."
Our work
Between us both we’ve been designing, building and analysing websites for over 20 years. Here is just a small selection of some of our favourite projects.
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Maggot Moon
We worked with Hot Key Books to design and build a site that works on as many devices as possible to accompany this award winning children’s book.
Our role:
- Design
- Perch content management system wrangling
- Front-end development
-
Rationalist Association
We are working with the team at the RA to completely rethink their online offering to members and non-members alike and how that works alongside their printed magazine.
Our role:
- Project management
- Research
- Design
- Front-end development
-
ALLOW
We worked, frantically, with London-based information protection start-up ALLOW Ltd over 6 months to develop and design ‘minimal viable product’ for their suite of privacy tools in order to secure £1.6 million in second round funding, which was achieved in July 2012.
Our role:
- Design
- Prototyping
-
Horrible Histories
We took time out from our main Scholastic website work and along with the lead designer for the Horrible Histories brand completely reworked the website in just 3 weeks.
Our role:
- Project management
- Design
- Front-end development
- Content management system wrangling
-
Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Working with the head of online we took the fully functioning prototype developed in Drupal and created a design that closely followed the brand guidelines developed by the Conran Design Group.
Our role:
- Design
- Front-end development
-
Brain’s Fairies Reunited
Artist Samantha Bryan wanted a way to show how her fantastic fairy creations had spread across the globe in the 10 years since she’s been making them. We used the Google Maps API and a dash of creativity to create a fun site that shows where in the world they are.
Our role:
- Design
- Front end development
How can we help?
No matter what stage your idea is at, feel free to get in touch to talk to us about it.
Quite a lot more about us
We've been working together for over 6 years and we're still friends! So much so that we got married in April 2013.
Rachel
I have been involved in the web as both a marketer and data analyst, where I spent many a day wrangling data from databases with SQL, before fully committing to design and development.
I started my career at the children’s publisher, Scholastic where I was firstly Product Assistant for the Book Club, then Senior Data Analyst and finally User Experience Designer.
I studied English at Cambridge and then Exploring Illustration at Central St. Martins.
I love cups of tea and they taste 0.3% more tasty if John makes them for me.
Rachel is an amazing individual -- there is possibly no limit to her potential. She has moved effortlessly between several roles within the business: product to business analysis to e-commerce management to a UX and design role. This mix of experience and her natural empathy for others has given her the ability to balance our business requirements while keeping focused our user’s needs. The result is an incredibly effective user experience professional who creates lovely, usable web sites that achieve business goals. If that wasn’t enough, she is a very good designer and front-end coder.
John
I’ve been working as a web designer since 1999, firstly as a Flash developer for a small Oxford-based design agency with some not so small clients. When the dot com bubble burst I found myself freelancing and after reading an article about the rise of CSS I focussed my attention on web standards and never looked back. One of the highlights of those early days was an official entry landing in the legendary CSS Zen Garden.
I spent many years working as a designer and front-end developer with start-ups in the US and the UK before joining the Children’s Publisher Scholastic where I spent 3+ years as User Experience Design Manager. From there I spent 9 happy months as a UX architect working for Canonical, who lead the incredibly ambitious and brilliant Ubuntu project. In 2012 the urge became too strong and I leapt back into the freelance way of life with Rachel.
I have written for .Net magazine and co-authored a book about content management systems. I blog occasionally and have recently taken to writing nonsense poems for my children.
In a previous life I worked as a chef in London with some chefs you’ve most probably heard of. I really don’t have a speciality but I do like cooking starters best. I learnt many hard lessons in the kitchen but most importantly that deadlines will arrive, whether you are ready or not, and without the support of your colleagues, you’re truly screwed.
I worked with John closely in the building of our maryglasgowplus.com website. He brought a freshness of design vision and an insightful understanding of user needs. These were critical success factors in helping our website go on to win awards, improve our profitability and meet the needs of our teenage audience. He also makes good jokes in long meetings, and has been known to bring biscuits.