Gr8tStep is the integrative practice of Gina Riley MBACP, offering therapeutic counselling, coaching and physical wellbeing, online UK-wide and in person in London. Reliable People took the practice from brand blueprint to live website: the identity, the design, the build and the launch.
The brief was a site that felt calm and trustworthy, explained three disciplines as one joined-up approach, and made the first step, a free 20-minute intro call, as easy as possible to take. We designed and built the brand and website in a six-week sprint, launching on www.gr8tstep.co.uk in August 2026 and refining it through September.
The brand:
- Identity: A new logo mark and wordmark, with a signature ‘aurora’ gradient that runs through buttons, highlights and even the favicon.
- Type and colour: An elegant script display face paired with Cormorant Garamond and Jost, set on a warm paper palette of deep teal, soft green and off-white. Every text colour was checked against WCAG AA contrast.
- Beyond the website: An HTML email signature built to match the site, and professional email set up on the practice’s own domain.
What we built:
- Six core pages: Home, Counselling, Coaching, Physical Wellbeing, About and Book, plus a full privacy policy and a friendly 404 page starring Gina’s dog.
- Interactive Venn diagram: Past, present and future (counselling, coaching and physical wellbeing) drawn as a live diagram that shows how the three disciplines overlap.
- Box breathing exercise: A ‘Feeling stressed?’ button on every page opens a guided 4-4-4-4 breathing exercise, with a 3-2-1 lead-in and a pacer that shifts colour with each breath.
- Copy that changes after dark: Between 11pm and 6am, the headline and announcement bar switch to speak to visitors who can’t sleep: “Trouble unwinding? Let’s solve that.”
- Coaching pyramid and testimonials: A labelled coaching pyramid and client testimonial carousels on the service pages.
- Enquiry form: A booking form that goes straight to Gina’s inbox, with built-in spam protection.
Under the bonnet:
- Fast and lightweight: Hand-built HTML, CSS and JavaScript with no heavy framework, responsive WebP images, and hosting on Vercel.
- SEO foundations: Structured data describing the practice, its services, and Gina’s qualifications and professional memberships (BACP, EMCC and REPs), plus a sitemap, a canonical www domain and clean, case-insensitive URLs.
- Privacy-first analytics: Cookie-free analytics and performance monitoring in place of Google Analytics, so visitors aren’t met with a consent banner.
- Accessible by design: Reduced-motion support throughout, and dedicated mobile and tablet passes so the site feels just as calm on a phone.
The result is a practice website that feels as considered as the care it offers, and gives Gina a brand she can carry across every touchpoint.
The live site, running right here. Scroll, click around, or try the breathing exercise.