Ishmael McCalla Back to portfolio
Case study · Founding designer + engineer

Designing CoverTurn from a blank page.

How I designed and shipped an AI-first web agency end-to-end. Brand system, product site, customer-facing chatbot, and an autonomous voice sales agent. All in production.

Role
Founding designer + engineer
Timeline
2024 to present
Surfaces
Brand, web, chat, voice
Status
Live in production
01The brief

Build a web agency that competes with established studios. Solo. With AI as the multiplier.

Thesis: a single designer with the right AI workflow can do the work of a four-person agency and serve small service businesses the existing agency model prices out.

The brief I gave myself was end-to-end. A brand built to stand on its own visual register. A product site that converts. A chatbot for after-hours lead capture. An autonomous voice agent for outbound. Everything live, the workflow replicable.

The first version of CoverTurn was built end-to-end on Lovable in 2024. The current version, with the Webverse brand and the AI agents, was rebuilt and rebranded over the last four weeks via Claude Code and Cursor.

02Discovery and approach

Studied 30+ agency sites. Found a gap nobody was filling.

Audited established London agencies (Ueno, Ragged Edge, Output) and the long tail of AI-native upstarts. The opening was clear: agency-grade craft, AI-native systems built in by default, and pricing that worked for SMBs. Combining all three was the design opportunity.

That positioned CoverTurn. Premium feel, opinionated brand, conversion-led. AI chatbot as a standard feature, not an upsell.

"A plumber's site should feel as considered as a Series-B SaaS company's, and capture leads while the plumber's on a job."

03Process

Four parallel tracks, one designer-engineer.

Brand · The Webverse

An original visual universe drawing on comic-book printing (halftone dots, CMYK misregistration, spider-web motifs) crossed with editorial typography. Big Shoulders Display for headlines, Inter for body, Space Grotesk for UI. Electric orange and ink black, with a single supporting teal.

Read the Webverse brand case study →

Product · The marketing site

Four jobs: explain the offer in five seconds, prove craft through the demo gallery, convert via the intake form, surface the AI receptionist as the differentiator. F-pattern hero. Niche-specific demos near the top to front-load social proof.

The demo gallery on coverturn.com. Niche-specific examples that let prospects see their own business in a real shipped site within seconds.

AI chatbot · The 24/7 receptionist

An AI receptionist for service businesses. Captures leads after hours, qualifies lightly, hands off by email. Built to WCAG 2.2 AA and Nielsen's heuristics. Runs at the edge in under 600 milliseconds.

Read the AI agents case study →

The AI receptionist section on coverturn.com. The chatbot is positioned as the standard feature that captures leads while a small business is unavailable.

AI voice agent · Outbound sales

Runs outbound calls and books demos. Four-yes Socratic flow: two discovery questions, a qualifying yes, then the offer. Permission-based opener. 500–750ms end-to-end response, inside the human-pacing band. Nineteen script versions before settling on the current shape.

04What shipped

A live agency, two AI agents, and a niche-spanning demo gallery.

Live at coverturn.com. Product site, brand system, chatbot, and voice agent all in production. A sample of the niche demos shipped: premium aesthetics, lash extensions, barbering, and criminal-defence law. Each with a distinct visual language.

Want to see the full agency? Visit coverturn.com ↗
05Outcomes

A live agency, real client work, AI in production.

2
AI agents shipped to production: a customer-facing chatbot and an outbound voice sales agent
10+
Niche demo sites shipped, each with a distinct visual language and conversion flow
<3s
Mobile load times across the agency site and every client build
600ms
Average response latency on the customer-facing AI chatbot
500–750ms
End-to-end response latency on the outbound voice agent, inside the human-pacing band
4
Live surfaces shipped solo: brand system, product site, AI chatbot, and outbound voice agent

Beyond the metrics, the outcome that matters most is the workflow. CoverTurn proves a single designer with a modern AI stack can credibly do the work of a small agency, ship in days instead of months, and produce work that stands up to comparison with established studios. That workflow is what I want to bring into a product team.

06Reflection

What two years of solo shipping taught me.

Brand discipline sets the rails. With a clear system every page argues itself. Without one, every page is a fresh argument.

AI agents are product surfaces, not features. Conversation flow, persona, latency, and error handling are design problems, not engineering bolt-ons.

Founders learn by shipping. Product designers learn by collaborating. The next chapter I want is in a team where I can sharpen craft alongside other senior people on harder problems than I can give myself.

If this is the kind of work your team needs, let's talk.
Get in touch ↗