Wave family, one personality
Sites, AI answers and free checks share a visual and verbal system. People should recognise Tidalux even if they only see one screen.
Case study · Tidalux
Creative vision, AI, and web development in one studio.
Tidalux is a UK digital studio I co-founded. Connor builds the platform. I direct how it looks, sounds and is sold, then stay close to clients so the live work still matches the brief.
RoleCreative director and co-founder
FocusBrand, clients, content, reporting
StudioTwo directors, Malvern / Birmingham
The problem I own
A studio that ships AI and websites can easily become a pile of features. My job is to keep a single through-line: small businesses should own their site, understand the bill, and talk to a human. That line shows up in colour, copy, pricing pages, and how we introduce WaveAI without hype.
What direction actually does
- Set the voice: plain English, warm, exacting, no jargon maze.
- Art-direct product stories so WaveSites, WaveAI and WaveCheck feel like one family.
- Shape client care: first meeting energy, follow-up, and what we refuse to oversell.
- Keep numbers useful: reporting that tells a story, not a dashboard dump.
- Give AI a personality with limits. Helpful, honest about gaps, never a gimmick.
Merging creative vision with AI and web development
I do not write the engine. I decide whether the engine is allowed in the room. If a generated answer would embarrass a salon owner on a Saturday, it does not ship. If a page is technically fine but visually thin, it is not finished. Creative direction here is a gate, not a moodboard.
Direction is the brief the code has to live up to.
In practice that means sitting with Connor on structure, then taking the public-facing layer: photography, type, campaign language, social, and the way we talk about ownership, UK hosting and GDPR without sounding like a legal PDF. AI is a production tool. The studio still needs someone who can tell when the output is clever and when it is merely fast.
Clients usually meet me first. I translate what they actually need into work the build can hold. That translation is the strategy: which product, which tone, which proof, which photograph, which sentence on the homepage.
How that shapes studio output
Human before generated
AI drafts are allowed. Unedited AI voice is not. I keep the studio sounding like two people in Malvern, not a content farm.
No account maze
Day-to-day care is part of the brand. If the work is senior, the conversation has to be senior too.