Anatomy of a sheet: how we scope a website on one page

Our name comes from pafta, the Turkish word for a map sheet: one numbered page of a larger plan. That is how we work. Before any design, before any code, a project becomes one sheet. It fits on a single page, it can be read in two minutes, and both sides sign it.

This note takes one sheet apart. The example is Tane Bakery, a neighbourhood bakery with two shops.

The code that runs through everything

The first thing on a sheet is its code. Tane’s was PF-15. It looks like a filing detail, but it does more work than it seems.

The code is in the subject line of every email and message. It is on the quote, the invoice and the name of every design file. When the bakers wrote to us in week four about a photo, they wrote “PF-15, the rye”, and everyone knew exactly which project, which sheet and which page they meant. Nobody had to search a thread or ask “which version?”.

A shared code is a small thing that saves a lot of sentences.

Years later, if Tane wants a third shop, we open PF-15 and the whole story is there.

Each line, with a real example

A sheet has the same lines every time. The order matters: each line answers the question the one before it raises.

• Type. What we are building. For Tane, a website: not a shop, because people pay at the counter.
• Who it’s for. The people the site has to work for, named plainly. Tane’s line: morning regulars and new neighbours around both shops. Two groups with two needs, and both shaped the design.
• Goal. One sentence we can check after launch. Tane’s: reserve tomorrow’s loaf before 20:00. The bakery sold out by eleven and sent people home empty-handed. The whole site exists to fix that.
• Pages. Named, not counted: Home, Breads, Pre-order, Shops, Story. If a page is not on this line, it is not in the project.
• Features. What the site has to do, in words the client would use. A daily bread list the bakers update at 06:00, a sold-out status, a next-morning pre-order with pickup at either shop.
• Content. Who provides the words and pictures. For Tane, our own photography brief, and bread names and notes written together with the bakers.
• Languages. The local language and English, because a lot of the new neighbours read English first.
• Timeline. The weeks from the first call to launch. Tane’s line read 7 weeks, with a preview link every Friday.

Under those lines the sheet also lists the revisions (two rounds at each stage), the payment in three parts, and what is not included. On Tane’s, that last line said online payment. It was a deliberate choice, and it kept the project calm.

PF-15 · Approved

Type

Website

Who it's for

Morning regulars and new neighbours around both shops

Goal

Reserve tomorrow's loaf before 20:00

Pages

Home, Breads, Pre-order, Shops, Story

Features

Daily bread list the bakers update at 06:00, sold-out status, next-morning pre-order with shop pickup

Content

Our own photography brief, bread names and notes written with the bakers

Languages

The local language and English

Timeline

3–4 weeks

What “approved” means

When a client signs the sheet, they are not approving a design. They have not seen one yet. They are approving the problem, the people, the pages and the dates.

Most projects that go wrong do not go wrong in the design. They go wrong because two people had two different sites in their heads. A signed sheet moves that conversation to week one, when it costs nothing to change your mind.

Approval also has rules we keep on our side. Nothing starts without a signed sheet. Nothing is added to it without a written yes. If Tane had asked for online payment in week four, we would have drawn a second sheet for it, with its own weeks, rather than squeezing it into the first. You can read more about how the quote is built in the pricing page.

How the sheet becomes the plan

Once the sheet is signed, it turns into the plan almost on its own. Each page on the Pages line becomes a design task. Each feature becomes a build task. Each line of Content becomes a date for the client: when the photographs are taken, when the bread notes arrive.

The Goal line becomes the test at launch. For Tane, we checked one thing above all others: can a regular, on a phone, at nine in the evening, reserve a loaf for tomorrow in under a minute? The bakers tried it themselves from the counter. Then we shipped.

The sheet stays at the top of the project file, so anyone who joins later can read in two minutes what was built and why. That is also how we hand over: with the sheet, the editor and a short video, so the bakers can update the site themselves.

Every website we build starts like this, on one page.

Draw your own

Draw a first sheet in a few minutes with our scope tool: same questions, a PF code, the weeks and how payment works. Or tell us about your project, and we draw it together.