Northstar
Practical, operator-minded HR done right the first time.
An operator-led HR consultancy, one of its principals a former Head of People at FanDuel. I designed the brand and the website that launched it: identity, voice, and a production site that walks a leader from diagnosis to handoff and resolves to a paid consult.
I built the brand, every line of copy, and the site solo.
Northstar is run by operators, one a former Head of People at FanDuel, put to work for leaders who have paid for HR consulting before and walked away with a deck and no system. It is a services firm with no product and no UI to design, so the brand had to land on first impression through the identity and the words alone.
I built all of it solo: the brand, every line of the copy, and the site, with no copywriter, no second developer, and no template.
The brand had to read senior with no track record behind it.
Northstar's audience is the founder, COO, or chief-of-staff at a scaling company who has paid for HR consulting before and walked away with a deck and no system. Sales, growth, and engineering all have execution disciplines those leaders trust; people work usually does not. The brand had to fill that gap on first read.
The offer is anti-HR-theater, so the design is anti-theater too. Nothing competes for attention, nothing is wasted, and a firm that wastes none of your attention reads like one that has done this before. A lighthouse photograph anchors the identity, and the wordmark reduces it to a single star that wears well at favicon size, on a footer, or across a slide. Warm copper against deep navy carries the gravity. P22 Mackinac sets the headlines with a single italic word of emphasis per line, so the page reads editorial, and Geist carries the body and the chrome.
The site follows the engagement: diagnosis, scope, implement, handoff.
The information architecture follows the engagement itself. The hero states the promise. A how-we-work section maps the three steps from diagnosis through scope to implement-and-handoff, and a what-we-do section lays out the four ways to engage: paid consult, assessments, project work, and advisory retainers. Every page resolves to one call to action: book a paid consult.
The design language is restrained on purpose. Tonal cream surfaces, generous whitespace, eyebrow chips above sections, large serif headlines, and a single copper button color so the next action is unambiguous. Photography stays grounded (sky, stone, beacon). The site reads the way the work does: direct, concrete, clean.
Live at thenorthstar.agency.
Northstar launched at thenorthstar.agency with a brand and site built around the consulting path: diagnose the people problem, scope the work, implement it, then hand it back cleanly. Every page resolves to a paid consult.