Mara Ellison
Started Brassfern in 2014 with a laptop, a grudge against mediocre software, and a very good fern.
- Role
- Founder & Creative Director
- Based
- Sydney
- In the journal
- 42 articles · 2 case studies
Marlowe Hotels: winning back the direct booking
A boutique coastal hotel group was paying OTAs a quiet tax on three-quarters of its bookings. We rebuilt the site and booking flow — and the share flipped.
Coriander Collective: six restaurants, one platform, zero beige
A restaurant group's six venues got one platform and six personalities: token-driven theming, unified reservations and gift cards that grew revenue 5x.
Roles and permissions: the quiet complexity of team products
Designing roles that match customer org charts, permission matrices people can read, invitation-time clarity, escalation paths and guarding against the accidental admin.
RSS: the distribution channel you already own
Followers you rent can be repriced overnight; a feed subscriber is yours. The case for full-text RSS in 2026 — and how to run a feed like a grown-up channel.
Bento grids: when the box layout earns its keep
A fair assessment of bento layouts: what they do well, where they collapse, span systems that survive real CMS data, and typography rules for mixed-size tiles.
Naming a company: our process from blank page to trademark
One naming engagement, told end to end: the brief that framed it, the 340 candidates, the screening gauntlet, and how 'Meridian' survived to become the name.
Referrals for studios: introductions, not codes
SaaS-style referral codes don't fit agencies. How studios actually grow by referral: designing introductions, credit mechanics, gratitude, and client memory.
Social proof design without the cringe
Logo soup and 'trusted by 10,000 teams' burn the credibility they mean to build. Proof that persuades is specific, placed next to the claim, and defensible.
Scope change without drama
Scope creep is a process failure wearing an intent costume. Distinguishing discovery from creep, a change-request micro-process, and scripts for hard talks.
The annual report as a web moment
The annual report is the year's biggest brand surface, usually wasted as a PDF. Structure the story, keep the data honest, ship it as a web moment.
Weekly demos: the habit that runs our projects
Weekly demos as a project operating system: the format that forces progress, recording etiquette, async viewing, demo-driven scope discovery and braver clients.
Bylines and author pages: small design, big trust
Named authors quietly outperform faceless content on every metric we track. The anatomy of a trustworthy byline and an author page worth visiting.
Draw the sitemap before anyone opens Figma
The sitemap is the cheapest UX artefact you'll ever make and the one teams skip most. Map user questions to pages, audit navigation debt, realign stakeholders fast.
About pages that actually convince
Your About page is where buyers go to decide if they trust you. The story structure, proof layers and honesty rules that turn biography wallpaper into conviction.
One system, many sites: multi-property brand design
Running several web properties off one brand system without blurring them: shared tokens, house vs. property layers, cross-site navigation and honest governance.
Skip the RFP: a better way to buy creative work
RFPs select for proposal-writing, not building. A better process: a short 'request for conversations', a shortlist of three, paid discovery with two.
A photography style without a photoshoot
No budget for a shoot? Crops, duotones, grain and a treatment matrix make any source image look on-brand. How we art-direct cheap photography.
Brand photography without the five-figure shoot
Big photography energy on a real budget: shot lists written like screenplays, a lighting language not a filter, and a library that doesn't age in six months.
The budget conversation: why hiding the number costs you more
Why sharing your real budget with an agency saves money: what ranges actually buy, how vague scope inflates quotes, and how to negotiate scope instead of rate.
Retainer or project? An honest decision guide
Retainer or fixed-scope project? An honest guide to when each engagement model wins — risk profiles, budget shapes, switching costs, and the questions to ask first.
Generative AI in brand work: our position, in plain language
Where generative AI genuinely helps brand work, where it quietly rots it, and the disclosure we give every client. Our studio position, stated plainly.
From shelf to screen: packaging-to-web consistency
Shoppers meet your brand on shelf and screen in the same week. Keeping them aligned: claims parity, photography, and the audits that catch drift.
Trust marks without the clipart
Certification badges and partner logos are the least trusted pixels on B2B sites. Typographic credentials, provenance links, and when badges erode trust.
Rebrand rollout: the domino order matters
A rebrand is a logistics operation wearing a brand costume. The domino order — domain, redirects, app stores, email, legal — that decides whether launch week sings.
Modernising a heritage brand without erasing its soul
Heritage rebrands fail when they sand off the character that made the brand matter. Audit what's earned, keep-burn-build, and modernise without whitewash.
Art-directing images for the responsive web
Cropping is composition. Focal-point markup, per-breakpoint aspect ratios, srcset discipline and an honest reckoning with when AI imagery serves a brand.
Co-branding: rules for sharing the stage
Partnership work exposes weak brand rules. Designing co-brand lockups, negotiating hierarchy, governing colour custody, and drafting legal-adjacent bits early.
Brand strategy on one page (or it isn't strategy)
Our one-page brand strategy format: audience tension, position, proof, personality and the 'we will not' column — with an annotated example and facilitation notes.
Rebrands that worked (and the ones that were just new paint)
An anatomy of rebrands that actually changed the business — knowing when to rebrand, how to sequence the rollout, and how to tell transformation from paint.
The minimum viable brand: what pre-seed founders actually need
Pre-seed founders don't need a rebrand budget; they need three artefacts and the discipline to use them. What to buy now, what to fake, and when to invest.
Packaging thinking for brands that live on screens
Digital brands still fight for shelf presence — the shelf just became glass. What packaging teaches app icons, social avatars, favicons and the 32-pixel identity problem.
Rebrand announcement day: theatre, then receipts
Launch day for a rebrand is a narrative event and an operational stress test. How to script the reveal, survive the hot takes, and when the case study actually lands.
Deliverability: the email growth lever nobody watches
SPF, DKIM and DMARC in plain English, list hygiene, domain warming, engagement-based sending, and how to diagnose why you landed in the promotions tab.
Kill the brand PDF: living guidelines that get used
Guideline PDFs rot in shared drives while brands drift. What actually replaces them: living guideline sites with tokens, patterns, versioning and honest governance.
Team pages that signal craft
A team page is a craft sample, not an org chart. Portraits as policy, bios that show judgment, people linked to their work, and org design without the ladder.
Running an accessibility audit that leads to fixes
Most accessibility audits produce a PDF and no change. Our format — automated sweeps, manual journeys, a severity taxonomy, and fix-forward roadmaps.
Mascot systems: when the character earns its keep
Most mascots are clip-art wallpaper. Here's how to tell if a character will earn its keep — and the construction, expression, motion and usage rules that keep it sharp.
Pilot projects: proving fit before the retainer
How to structure a paid two-to-four-week pilot with an agency: what a pilot can actually prove, honest pricing, exit criteria, and converting a pilot into an engagement.
Picking a brand palette is strategy wearing paint
A brand palette is a strategic decision before it is an aesthetic one. How we map competitors, treat accessibility as a creative constraint, and pick ownable colour.
Refresh or rebrand? A decision tree for tired identities
Is it the logo or the product? Diagnostics that route a tired identity to refresh, evolution or full rebrand — with the cost and risk curves for each path.
Choosing an agency: signals over showreels
How to evaluate a studio beyond the deck: process evidence, who does the work, reference questions that reveal truth, and red flags in pricing.
Getting the most from a remote studio
Hiring a distributed agency shouldn't mean slower decisions or lonelier projects. A buyer's guide to async rituals, time zones and demo cadence.
Rebrand rollouts: the unglamorous crucial middle
Launch day is the easy part. The rebrand rollout plan: asset census, coexistence windows, internal enablement and honest measurement long after the applause.
How to design case study pages that win work
A case study page is a sales conversation in disguise. The anatomy we use: narrative arc, proof placement, honest metrics, and a CTA that never begs.