About Old Bear Studios
Old Bear Studios is a web design studio tucked inside Old Bear House in Malmesbury.
Kevin and Gemma, along with associates, work quietly behind the scenes to design and build Squarespace websites that feel calm, confident, and genuinely useful.
There is no big agency façade here. No layers of account managers. Just real people, listening carefully, doing thoughtful work and replying to emails themselves.
Meet the Team
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Kevin
LEAD DESIGNER & DEVELOPER
Kevin is the primary designer and developer. He has spent years running his own photography business, building and refining his own website and many others on Squarespace. That background in documentary photography means he is obsessed with story, layout and how real people move through a page.
He cares a lot about the small details that most visitors will never consciously spot, but somehow feel.
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Gemma
GRAPHICS & STUDIO MANAGEMENT
Gemma looks after design, graphics and studio management. She has a great eye for balance and simplicity and a knack for choosing typography, colour and imagery that feel just right rather than overdesigned. Gemma is also the organisational side of the studio, keeping projects on track so you always know what is happening and when.
Between us you get the creative thinking, the technical know-how and the practical organisation in one place.
Where the name comes from
People often ask about the name. Old Bear Studios is named after Old Bear House, the place where our studios are based. It is an old building with a lot of character - slightly wonky in places, full of stories, and the opposite of sterile and corporate.
That is very much how we think about websites, too. Beauty is great, of course, but character and usefulness matter more. Your site should feel like you, not like a generic template with your logo dropped on top.
What we believe about websites
We have a few simple principles that show up in everything we do.
Websites should be clear before they are clever.
Design should feel calm, not shouty.
Your site should be easy for you to update once we are finished.
Good copy, good images and good structure matter as much as fancy design.
A website should support your business in real, measurable ways, not just look nice in a screenshot.
We build on Squarespace because it lets us combine strong design with a platform that is stable, flexible and manageable for our clients in the long term.
How we work with you
We like to keep the process straightforward.
We start by understanding you and your business: what you do, who you serve, what is working and what is not. From there, we sketch out the structure of the site, talk through content and work out what you actually need your website to do.
Then we design directly in Squarespace, sharing previews as we go so you can see everything taking shape in real time. We fine-tune copy, layout and mobile experience, and once the site is live, we make sure you feel confident editing pages, adding content and using any built-in tools such as scheduling, forms or e-commerce.
No drama. No mystery. Just a clear path from “we really should sort our website out” to “this finally feels like us”.
Why work with Old Bear Studios
If you are looking for a huge agency with departments and buzzwords, we are probably not the right fit.
If you would like to work with a small, friendly studio that will actually read your brief, ask sensible questions and design something that feels honest, modern and quietly confident, that is where we fit in.
We care about:
independent businesses and creatives who want a site that feels considered
clear, human language instead of jargon
long term usefulness rather than short term gimmicks
