About
We're a design-build studio, crafting design systems and digital products for the world's most pressing causes. We partner with organisations to bring their product to life, from concept through to launch and maintenance.
Founded 2026
Services
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Website design & build
We design and engineer the whole thing, from spec to launch and beyond. Marketing websites, digital tools, platforms, interactive data explorers, demos, high-conversion web campaigns, and more.
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Maintenance & domain management
Monthly plans that keep your site online, fast, and secure, from a light-touch essentials tier up to continual development of new features and pages. We can also look after your domain and DNS.
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Design & engineering reviews
An expert critique of your design, or a review of your product, codebase, or build plan, before or after launch. We also offer security audits.
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Shared infrastructure
When we spot a problem shared across high-impact organisations, we occasionally build a product to solve it and make it available under licence.
What to expect
Rapid delivery
Workflows designed to get your project to a first version rapidly, and to iterate quickly when your projects demand it.
Beautiful, distinctive design
Websites that stand out from the crowd: a carefully crafted visual identity, refined typography, and clean, intuitive interfaces that make your work engaging and easy to use.
Websites that can adapt to fast-changing requirements
Built with a modern, cutting-edge tech stack that delivers scalability, speed, and modularity in a wide range of conditions.
Impact-driven products
We don’t just make your website look good; we’re immersed in the strategy behind your product, and carefully examine your content strategy and structure to ensure it will deliver on your goals.
Campaigns built to convert
Message testing, A/B testing, conversion tracking, and audience analysis available as add-on services when your campaigns demand it.
Emergency handling built-in from the beginning
We’re prepared to handle emergencies, last-minute requests, and out-of-hours changes, and we’re designing our workflows to be able to handle such demands without breaking a sweat.
Capacity to carry your full website portfolio
We’re able to handle the building and maintenance workload for your complete digital product portfolio under a single roof.
Continual development
Websites must continually evolve and grow to remain relevant in the marketplace. We aim to be your strategic web partner, always on the lookout for opportunities to expand and improve your product portfolio.
-
Rapid delivery
Workflows designed to get your project to a first version rapidly, and to iterate quickly when your projects demand it.
-
Beautiful, distinctive design
Websites that stand out from the crowd: a carefully crafted visual identity, refined typography, and clean, intuitive interfaces that make your work engaging and easy to use.
-
Websites that can adapt to fast-changing requirements
Built with a modern, cutting-edge tech stack that delivers scalability, speed, and modularity in a wide range of conditions.
-
Impact-driven products
We don’t just make your website look good; we’re immersed in the strategy behind your product, and carefully examine your content strategy and structure to ensure it will deliver on your goals.
-
Campaigns built to convert
Message testing, A/B testing, conversion tracking, and audience analysis available as add-on services when your campaigns demand it.
-
Emergency handling built-in from the beginning
We’re prepared to handle emergencies, last-minute requests, and out-of-hours changes, and we’re designing our workflows to be able to handle such demands without breaking a sweat.
-
Capacity to carry your full website portfolio
We’re able to handle the building and maintenance workload for your complete digital product portfolio under a single roof.
-
Continual development
Websites must continually evolve and grow to remain relevant in the marketplace. We aim to be your strategic web partner, always on the lookout for opportunities to expand and improve your product portfolio.
Security & uptime
We build sites that stay online and bounce back fast.
AI is making cyberattacks cheaper, faster and easier to run at scale, and that brings risks that didn't exist a few years ago. We make security a central criterion in how we choose every part of our tech stack.
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Stays up under pressure
We host behind a global edge network that absorbs attacks and traffic spikes before they reach your site, and scales automatically when demand surges.
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Minimal attack surface
Where possible, we run your site, CMS and services as one application, on read-only infrastructure. We are also able to block AI agents and bots from sensitive surfaces like admin pages.
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Defence in depth
We have mapped the layers at which failure can occur to take down a website, and built our infrastructure around mitigating problems at each layer while having appropriate fallbacks at the ready.
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Portable and recoverable
All our sites are built on widely supported technologies that any host can run. We keep several backups, including offline copies, and can move your site to a new provider within the hour.
Work
Including independent work from our team membersTeam
A note from the founders
Why we started Common Mechanics
The AI safety ecosystem is full of high-impact organisations that are under-resourced in their communications. Websites are a critical component for digital campaigns, and many AI safety projects are doubling down on communications and advocacy today.
Websites are essential for organisations who wish to establish a presence, build reputation, attract talent, and fundraise.
But design and technology work can be complex and requires specialised knowledge; high-impact organisations consistently report that they have ongoing needs their internal teams aren't well-suited to handle, and current market offerings tend to fall short for organisations with more technical requirements.
Demand for design and product-building in the ecosystem is significant and growing—Forethought, Coefficient Giving, Rethink Priorities, 80,000 Hours, and the Future of Life Foundation have each highlighted this kind of work as a top priority, while surveys and reports from EA-aligned agencies (User Friendly, Good Impressions) show widespread unmet need.
Every year, a slew of 20-50 new EA, AI safety, and existential risk projects are formed via incubators like BlueDot Impact, Catalyze Impact, the Future of Life Foundation, Sheldon Lab, Halcyon Futures, and more, each of which must establish themselves and build an online presence.
By providing faster, more cost-effective, higher-quality product-building to this ecosystem—and eventually building shared infrastructure at scale—we aim to make the ecosystem more effective at its core mission.
Taylor, Alex & Max
Common questions
Working with us
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What is included in a website project?
Everything, from early concept right through to launch. We also offer optional ongoing maintenance. Every website we deliver comes with search engine optimisation, your own analytics access, strong performance across devices, and full tablet and mobile responsiveness. Everything you'd expect from a modern website. -
Do you contribute content to projects?
Usually not, but we can help you get to a first draft if you're short on time. If you have a copywriter or editor on your team, please invite them to join the project. If you have particular requirements, let's talk about it. -
Do you work with clients who don't already have a visual identity?
We prefer projects where an established design system is already in place. When a project demands it, we can design a minimal visual identity as part of a website build, but we don't offer visual identity as a standalone service. -
What is your minimum engagement level?
Our minimum for a design or product deliverable is £10,000. But if you have a smaller project, reach out anyway and we'll see how we can help. -
How long does an engagement typically last?
Most projects take between two weeks and three months, depending on scope. Once a site or product launches, our continual development maintenance plan lets us keep building new features and pages every month. -
Where can I see your contract terms?
Our service agreement summary walks through our standard contract in plain English: how projects, payment, ownership, credit, confidentiality and ending the agreement work. It also links to the full template agreement.
After launch
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Do you fix bugs after a website launch?
Yes. For three months after your site goes live, we'll fix anything that doesn't work as set out in the final approved design and scope, free of charge. This covers things that are genuinely broken, not new features, design changes or additional development, which we'd handle as a separate piece of work or through a maintenance plan. -
How does website maintenance work and what does it cost?
Each site has its own flat monthly fee, set by the tier you choose:
- Essential, £100/mo. Your website is static and unchanging, but needs to stay online, fast, and secure. Includes hosting, dependency updates, monitoring, backups, and uptime checks.
- Small adjustments, £300/mo. Your website needs a few occasional content updates, bug fixes, or feature tweaks per month. (Essential included)
- Gradual development, £900/mo. Your website needs a few small tweaks and one significant new feature, section, or page per month. (Essential included)
- Continual development, £2,000/mo. Your website is continually expanding and growing, with a few new features, sections, or pages being built every month. (Essential included)
You can move up or down a tier every month, any time before your renewal date. Sites we build get a discount on their first year.
Domain management, £30/mo. We handle domain purchasing and renewals (up to £100/yr in renewal fees), domain routing and parking, and manage your DNS settings (required for operating websites, email inboxes, and other accounts like Google Workspace from your company domain).
The goal is to make edits and maintenance so easy, fast, and affordable that you never have to touch the site yourself if you don't want to.
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How do you handle privacy and security?
Our privacy notice and data processing pages cover the essentials. If you'd like more detail on our privacy and security policies, get in touch and we'll send you a fuller write-up.
About us
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What sort of projects do you build?
We build web-based digital products that advance AI safety and existential risk mitigation, empower people, and reduce AI-related harm. That includes marketing websites, community tools, campaign landing pages, and software platforms, from epistemic and governance tooling to technical safety tools. We work on both bespoke projects and ongoing platforms. -
How do you choose which cause areas to work in?
We focus mainly on AI safety, not as a rule, but because it looks like where we can have the most impact right now. We use a simple framework (Importance, Neglectedness, Tractability) and mix that with quick heuristics. If a project in another area comes along with outsized impact potential, we'll consider taking it on. We also lean toward infrastructure, platforms, and reusable tools rather than one-off deliverables. -
How much of your work is client-driven versus self-initiated?
Clients usually know their space better than we do, so especially early on we'll defer to client priorities. Over time we'll grow a proactive agenda, spotting gaps no one else is coordinating and building what the field needs. -
How many clients do you take on?
Initially, we partner with a small number of established clients running high-volume, demanding communications programs. This lets us integrate deeply with their mission and build large-scale, sophisticated campaigns. Over time, we plan to streamline our offering to also serve smaller, less-resourced organisations. -
Where are you based?
We're a remote team serving clients anywhere in the world. Taylor is based in the UK, and Max and Alex are based in Germany. We're happy to travel to you if an in-person consultation is needed, and can be compensated. -
When is your team online?
Our typical working hours are 9am to 9pm UK time, which overlaps 7 hours with US Eastern and 4 hours with US Pacific. We can occasionally offer extended hours from 7am to midnight UK time (10 hours' overlap with Eastern, 7 with Pacific) at no added cost.