sandcastle
sandcastle is a tiny creative design studio based in London, with roots in sunny California.
we are playful and collaborative at heart, and we focus on the creative process with techniques that are iterative, expressive, and technical.
our founder, designer, developer, and maestro Foster Douglas can be found in the nearest kitchen brewing tasty coffee and making other things.
say hello . . .
looking for a way to share something you care about, build a community, a website, or help others do something? whether you're an individual with a creative project, a small business with new ideas, an idealist with ambitious dreams… or something else: email us.
grains of sand
we were founded in 2015 with a mission to change the relationship between the client and the designer, by focusing on the nuanced art of open collaboration, mixed with a deliberate focus on creative iteration.
special shout out to Kevin McGillivray, our other original founder, for all the help setting our ethos and values.
Cura Coffeehouse
Branding
Marketing
Interior Design
Leadership
Logo Design
Operations
Print Design
Writing
Cura was our most complex project to date. It began first as a local outreach program to provide free coffee, freshly brewed by hand, to community centers and libraries around the Green Bay area in Wisconsin. An opportunity to open a physical space led to its permanent presence inside of a downtown library. I founded the business, as well as built and managed all aspects of the coffeehouse, including physical architecture, marketing design, and a custom training program developed for employee growth within the larger coffee community.
A more detailed project retrospective with additional images on the brand and marketing design can be viewed here.
Sandcastle is still overjoyed to have had an opportunity to work with a print magazine, something of a rare breed these days. The Dispatches primary website, housing hundreds of print and online articles, required a migration off of their old clunky Wordpress setup. To move the entire catalog of articles and styling them to carefully match the originals was a monumental logistical task, and I chose Webflow as their new platform for its simplicity and flexibility. The project also included elements of a brand refresh and visual guidelines, and an upcoming opportunity for me to contribute as a guest writer.
Good Life Yoga School
Branding
Logo Design
Marketing
Print Design
Web Design
Web Development
Photography
Sandcastle has partnered with GLYS to help with an entire rebrand that kicked off 2026 including: ad marketing and social media updates that support the company’s updated vision statement, dynamic video content, a new logo and colour design system that better reflects the brand owner and company priorities, a content-managed custom website build on Webflow designed for easy scaling as the company grows, and on-location event photography for trainings and retreats.
cafen
Operations
Branding
Marketing
Web Design
Web Development
Leadership
Package Design
Print Design
After years of training in the speciality coffee industry, I stumbled across an opportunity to use my diverse set of skills all within a single project. The brand cafen, a coffee shop and roastery, was in the early stages of development when I met the founder. The primary cafe in Edinburgh, Scotland opened in late 2024, and 6 months later we opened the roastery near by. I’ve been instrumental in these two businesses, acting as head of operations and shipping logistics for the roastery, as well as handling all design aspects of the brand, including marketing and design, and most notably the coffee roastery’s suite of premium printed package designs for bags and boxes.
SurgeROI
Branding
Product Design
UX Design
Leadership
Logo Design
Print Design
Programming
Web Design
Web Development
SurgeROI is a tech company that I helped co-found. The idea for it began in a San Francisco penthouse suite in 2018 with a novel concept of custom software for a business’s elite and VIP customers. The design also had an angle of philanthropy that I was particularly interested in. In the first few months, we secured funding, and over the next few years we grew it to a team of 12 and eventually released a beta version of the product.
As co-founder, and out of necessity for the company, I assumed many roles: brand designer, marketing, and product design, UX design, web design and application development.
A more detailed post-project retrospective on the brand and marketing design can viewed found here.
OHMG Water is early in its brand journey, and Sandcastle has had the recent opportunity to do ongoing event and product photography to help elevate their image and create more consistency across their social media channels and their website.
This small proof-of-concept project ended up being one of my favorite logo designs. The concept for Pigeon is a simple platform that helps healthcare companies manage their patients’ health reminders remotely. For example, a doctor could create a tailored medicine schedule, or a physiotherapist could create a custom rehabilitation routine, and Pigeon would help track and confirm that the client is reminded and following schedules as recommended. The app remains in idea phase for now, but may grow into something larger in the future. A collection of images of the app’s UI design can be seen here.
One of Sandcastle’s first design clients, I created a refreshed brand and website for this coffee company as it was out-growing its small roots in the founder’s backyard shed. The website has since evolved beyond the first design, but the original branding refresh I did in 2016 still remains as their primary logo, and can be seen plastered all over their new stunning roastery located in Surrey Hills in England.
My personal website contains a collection of various projects I’ve done outside of Sandcastle – and a few overlaps. I enjoy creating and exploring across various media, and this is a good representation of some of my favourite things: theatre, design, audio, writing, collaboration, and making.
Everyday Lemonade
Branding
Programming
Game Design
Audio Design
Illustration
Originally, in the mid 2010’s, Everyday Lemonade was a small game design studio of myself and Corey Martin Zanotti. We came together again in 2021 to create a handful of small and intriguing game designs, primarily for game jams with limited time and strict requirements. In 2022, we focused heavily the May Day Mental Health Jam with our game Biotopico, an experience meant to help players relax and meditate through breathing exercises, while also contributing with planted trees in the real world. The game won second place and a 10,000 dollar prize, and is still live available to play.
Luke had an interesting challenge for Sandcastle - he had five different websites representing his playwriting, plays, books, and speaking events, and he wanted to consolidate them into a single site. I moved him from Wordpress over to Webflow without any major migration issues despite the complexity, and I continue to develop and evolve his brand and design as he’s grown over the recent years.
Our longest-standing collaboration, we’ve worked together with E By Design since 2019 on a handful of projects. Initially, they required a simple website refresh. That partnership led to additional opportunities, and I developed of a new internal UX and UI system for their primary client, Triton. After a few years, Sandcastle and E By Design, along with two other partners, founded SurgeROI, an industry leading software suite for customer engagement and retention.
This theatre show was Sandcastle’s first major opportunity to work in the theatre realm. I was initially brought on to the team to help with live audio production, but my role developed quickly into a producer, creative consultant, and visual designer. The team took the show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2024 and had a successful 25-show run across 4 weeks, including a handful of sold-out shows.
Sandcastle
Branding
Illustration
Leadership
Logo Design
Marketing
Operations
Package Design
UX Design
Web Design
Web Development
Ironically, Sandcastle did not design its own logo! We felt at the time it was a bit too close to home to do it ourselves. Instead, in 2015, we worked closely with Louie at parakeet.co to develop the primary logo and colours. Since then, I’ve designed our own marketing, media, and visuals, as well as the development of this website. The concept behind the current design of this website is meant to be playful, yet still organised and useful.
