Simply Design

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Simply Design

We’re Simply Design — an Irish design studio focused on branding, web design and print.

From business websites to book design and professional printing, we help bring ideas to life with clarity and care. Simply Design is an Ireland-based design studio specialising in web design, e-commerce, branding, book design and print. We work with businesses, authors and startups to create clear, professional design that works both online and in print. From WordPress websites and WooCommerce sho

ps to books, brochures, board games and branding, we handle the full process from design to delivery.

20/04/2026

Teachers across Ireland are commissioning custom card games for their classrooms — and the results speak for themselves.

A card game does something a worksheet simply cannot. It puts students in the middle of the action. They handle the cards, make decisions, compete, cooperate, and remember.

Here are the types of educational card games Irish schools are using right now:

🃏 Question and answer — history, geography, Irish language, science
🔄 Matching and sorting — vocabulary, habitats, timelines, number bonds
🧠 Memory games — bilingual English/Irish pairs, facts, images and labels
🁢 Domino-style — fractions, sequencing, vocabulary chains
💬 Storytelling cards — SPHE, CSPE, creative writing, discussion prompts

The best part? These games can be produced in small runs — enough for one classroom, one school, or a wider distribution if you need it.

We design and print custom educational card games for teachers, schools, educational publishers, SEN specialists, heritage organisations, and charities across Ireland.

https://simplydesign.ie/educational-card-games-for-schools-ireland/

Are you a teacher who has ever wished you had a card game built around your specific curriculum? Tell us what subject — we'd love to hear it.

16/04/2026

How long does it take to build a website in Ireland?

At Simply Design, most projects go from brief to launch in 2 to 4 weeks.

But here is the honest answer nobody else will give you:

The timeline depends far more on the client than the designer.

The most common reasons a website runs over schedule:

❌ Copy not ready — a designer cannot build pages without words. If your text is not written, the project stops
❌ Photos not organised — shoots that haven't happened, phone photos nobody has sorted through, stock images not yet decided
❌ Slow feedback — send concepts on Monday, hear back on Friday, lose most of a week. Do that three times and a 4-week job becomes a 7-week job
❌ Decisions not made — colour palette, page structure, tone of writing — things that seem small but stop progress
❌ Scope changes mid-build — perfectly normal, but every significant change adds time

The good news? You control most of this.

Arrive at a project kickoff with your copy written, images ready, and a clear idea of what you need — and your website can realistically be live in 2 to 3 weeks.

Full honest breakdown - https://simplydesign.ie/ how-long-to-build-a-website-ireland

Have you been through a website project that took way longer than expected? Tell us what caused the delay.

13/04/2026

WooCommerce or Shopify? It is one of the most common questions Irish business owners ask before setting up an online store.

Here is the honest answer — and we build on WooCommerce, so you know where we stand.

💰 Shopify Ireland costs:
Basic — €24/month | Grow — €69/month | Advanced — €289/month (annual billing)
Plus transaction fees of up to 2% if you are not using Shopify Payments

🛠️ WooCommerce costs:
The plugin is free. You pay for hosting (€15–€50/month), your .ie domain (around €45.99/year), and any plugins you need. No transaction fees.

But price is not the whole story.

Here is when Shopify makes more sense:
✅ You want to launch fast with minimal technical setup
✅ You have a simple product catalogue
✅ You want to manage everything yourself without a developer

Here is when WooCommerce makes more sense:
✅ You want to own your data, your hosting, your files — everything
✅ SEO and content marketing are important to your growth
✅ You have complex products or unusual checkout requirements
✅ You do not want to pay a percentage of every sale to a platform

We have written a full honest breakdown — costs, ownership, SEO, transaction fees, and which suits most Irish SMEs.

https://simplydesign.ie/woocommerce-vs-shopify-ireland/

WooCommerce or Shopify — which are you on, and are you happy with it?

09/04/2026

One of the most common questions we get from Irish authors:

"Do I need an ISBN — and where do I even get one?"

Here is the short version:

✅ If you want to sell in bookshops, libraries or online retailers — yes, you need one
✅ ISBNs in Ireland come from the Nielsen UK ISBN Store (nielsenisbnstore.com)
✅ A single ISBN costs £93. A block of 10 costs £174
✅ Each format needs its own — paperback, hardback and eBook are all separate
✅ Free ISBNs from KDP or IngramSpark exist — but they lock your book to their platform

And the step most guides skip entirely — legal deposit. Once your book is published in Ireland, you are legally required to send copies to the National Library of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, and several other libraries. Most self-publishing guides never mention this.

We have written a full step-by-step guide covering everything — where to buy, what to register, how to get your barcode, legal deposit, and when you actually do not need an ISBN at all.

https://simplydesign.ie/how-to-get-an-isbn-in-ireland/

Are you working on a book? Drop a question below, and we will help if we can.

07/04/2026

Most Irish businesses that end up with a website they hate say the same thing — they didn't ask the right questions before they hired someone.

After 12 years building websites for Irish businesses, here's what we've learned:

The problems are almost never technical. They're process problems.

❌ A designer who takes on too many clients at once
❌ A project that starts well then goes quiet for weeks
❌ A finished site that looks nothing like what was agreed
❌ A designer who disappears after launch

Here are 10 questions to ask any web designer before you hand over a deposit — including one most people never think to ask (hint: it's about what happens when YOU edit the site yourself).

We also cover:
✅ What platform your site should be built on and why
✅ What a quote should actually include
✅ Red flags to walk away from immediately
✅ Why a small studio often beats a large agency

Full guide - https://simplydesign.ie/how-to-choose-a-web-designer-ireland/

Have you had a bad web design experience? Tell us what went wrong.

05/04/2026

AI tools can generate a book cover in seconds. Canva can have something ready in an afternoon. Both look perfectly fine on screen.

The problem starts when you send the file to a printer.

Here is what most authors find out too late:

❌ AI-generated covers are flat raster images — no bleed, no CMYK, no crop marks
❌ The resolution that looks fine on your phone often falls well short of the 300 DPI commercial print needs
❌ Any text burned into an AI image cannot be edited, resized or repositioned
❌ Canva Free cannot set up bleed or work natively in CMYK at all
❌ Even Canva Pro needs significant print knowledge to produce a file a printer will actually accept

The printer either sends it back, or prints it anyway — and you only see the problem when the boxes arrive.

We have written a full honest guide to all three options — AI, Canva, and professional design — and exactly what each one gives you when it comes to going to print.

https://simplydesign.ie/book-cover-design-ireland/

Have you had a book cover file rejected? Tell us what happened.

02/04/2026

Most authors ask "how much does book design cost?" before they understand what they're actually paying for.

The honest answer? Every book is different. A slim poetry collection and a 300-page illustrated history book are both books — the same way a bicycle and a lorry are both vehicles.

What actually drives the price up:
✏️ Custom illustrations
🎨 Cover complexity
📐 Interior layout and typesetting
🔄 How many revisions you need

What doesn't necessarily cost more to design? A thicker book. (It costs more to print — but that's a separate budget entirely.)

We recently designed Snappin' Twine for Mullingar author Ursula Kane Cafferty — shortlisted for the CAP Awards 2025. Professional design doesn't guarantee an award. But a bad cover will almost certainly prevent one.

Full breakdown in our latest blog post — https://simplydesign.ie/book-design-cost-ireland/

Are you working on a book? Drop a comment — we'd love to hear about it.

30/03/2026

🎲 Pens get lost. Tote bags get forgotten. But a branded board game? That stays on the shelf for years.
If you are looking for a promotional item that actually gets used — something that ends up on the kitchen table on a Friday night with your logo on it — custom branded games and puzzles are something very few Irish businesses have discovered yet.

We have just published a guide covering everything from branded card games and memory games to custom jigsaws, who they work best for, and why donating them to local schools and community centres is one of the smartest local brand-building moves a business can make.

There is also a straight answer to the question everyone asks — what does it actually cost, and how much cheaper does it get when you order in quantity?

👉 https://simplydesign.ie/branded-promotional-games-ireland/

26/03/2026

💛 Your logo is one of the most important investments your business will ever make — and yet most business owners only discover this after they've had to replace a cheap one.

We've written an honest guide covering everything Irish businesses need to know before spending a cent on logo design. What it actually costs, what you should receive from your designer, why cheap logos end up being the most expensive, and the two legal steps most Irish business owners skip that leave their brand completely unprotected.

We also share the story of our work with Ursula Kane Cafferty on ActiVacation — a board game project that grew into full branding, print, and ecommerce from the ground up.

👉 https://simplydesign.ie/logo-design-cost-ireland/

23/03/2026

📖 Did you know that typography is one of the main reasons readers put a book down — without ever being able to explain why?

If you are self-publishing, the fonts you choose matter far more than most people realise. The wrong font makes your book look like a home printer job. The right ones make it look like it belongs in any bookshop in the country.

We have put together a guide covering everything authors need to know about fonts for book design — the two font roles every book needs, what to avoid, and where to find professional typefaces (including one deals site that most designers keep to themselves 👀).

👉 https://simplydesign.ie/fonts-for-book-design/

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