Monterey

Design in Monterey,
since 1994.

Websites, brand identity, signage, print and commercial photography for Monterey businesses — from a studio eight minutes down Highway 1 in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Walk down Alvarado Street
and you pass our work.

The sign hanging outside the Old Monterey Cafe is ours — drawn here, carved, and mounted on that wall where it still is today. A few doors along, Nami Restaurant's brand and the photography behind it came out of this studio. Round the corner at Pearl and Munras, the interpretive panel at Simoneau Plaza has been standing since 2000, designed for the City of Monterey and the Robert Louis Stevenson Club.

That is an unusual thing for a design studio to be able to say, and it is the short version of why Monterey businesses keep calling. Thirty years of work in one town leaves things behind — signs, menus, brochures, a marker on a street corner — and most of it is still there to look at.

And the websites are Monterey websites too. Anna Wilson's site runs out of 513-A Hartnell Street — a Monterey realtor, a Monterey office, built and photographed here.

We are not a Monterey studio and we will not pretend otherwise: the office is at 764 Lincoln Street in Carmel-by-the-Sea. It is an eight-minute drive, we make it constantly, and we come to you.

Built for Monterey

A Monterey business, live right now.

All Web Design
513-A Hartnell St, Monterey
Web · Photography
Anna Wilson, Realtor — Del Monte Realty
Carmel-by-the-Sea
Web · Photography
O'Callaghan's Irish Pub
Carmel-by-the-Sea
Web · Photography
Enzo Ristorante Italiano

Most of our website work is Carmel and the wider Peninsula — we would rather show you that honestly than pretend otherwise. What is unambiguously Monterey is everything else: the signs, the brand work, the print and the photography below.

The Old Monterey Cafe dimensional sign on Alvarado Street, Monterey — designed by Crema Creative Media
Still Hanging

A sign is a promise you have to keep.

The Old Monterey Cafe asked for something that would read from across Alvarado Street and say "breakfast" before anyone got close enough to read a word. What they got was a dimensional sign — carved leeks and carrots on one side, a pineapple and a tomato on the other, a cafe name on a deep blue field, and four words along the bottom that do the actual selling: Breakfast Anytime.

It was drawn flat here in the studio, then carved, painted and mounted. It is still on that wall.

That is the part of this trade worth caring about. A website can be rebuilt and an ad runs for a month, but a sign hangs over a doorway in weather for years, and every day it either brings someone in or it does not. Getting that right is a different discipline from making something look good on a screen — and we do both, which is rarer than it sounds.

Client
Old Monterey Cafe, Alvarado Street, Monterey
Scope
Sign design & artwork — dimensional, fabricated and installed
Status
Still hanging

Thirty years of
Monterey clients.

A partial list, by what they do rather than when we worked with them. Some are current, some go back decades, and several have changed hands since.

Restaurants & hospitality. Nami Restaurant on Alvarado Street — brand, advertising and photography. Montrio Bistro, including recent social video. Tarpy's Roadhouse on Highway 68. Old Monterey Cafe. Accista Spa at the Hyatt Regency Monterey.

The city and its schools. The City of Monterey, for the Simoneau Plaza interpretive panel installed in 2000 and standing still. Monterey Peninsula Unified School District. Monterey Adult School and the Regional Occupational Program, serving Monterey and Seaside High.

Real estate. Anna Wilson of Del Monte Realty, 513-A Hartnell Street — website, brand and photography for a realtor who was born in Big Sur and has spent twenty-two years in Monterey.

Business & professional. MPI Jet — Monterey Pacific International, the private air carrier on Sky Park Drive. Monterey Peninsula Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Center on Lower Ragsdale Drive, the Peninsula's only 24-hour animal hospital. Monterey Bay Gardening & Landscape.

Non-profit & civic. The Nonprofit Alliance of Monterey County. The Robert Louis Stevenson Club of Monterey.

Restaurants, a school district, an air carrier, an emergency veterinary hospital, a city government and a 19th-century literary society. It is not a tidy list, and that is rather the point — thirty years in one place means you end up designing for whoever walks in.

See the Portfolio
What It Costs

Real numbers, before you call.

Simple
$3,200
4–8 pages

A gallery or brochure site. Right for a shop, a tradesperson, a practice, or any business whose customers need to see the work, find the hours and get in touch.

Mid-Size Business
$4,500–$7,000
8–15 pages

Where most Monterey clients land. Restaurants with menus and events, clinics, contractors with project galleries, professional firms with real depth to show.

Large Business
$7,500–$15,000
15+ pages

Multiple locations, e-commerce, booking systems, or a deep service and location structure that has to stay organized as it grows.

Those are website prices, and a commercial photo shoot is included in all three. Logos, signage, print and apparel are quoted per piece — tell us what you need and you get a firm written number, usually within a day of talking. Call 831-236-1998.

Common Questions

What Monterey businesses ask us.

Do you work with businesses in Monterey?

Constantly, and for thirty years. The studio is in Carmel-by-the-Sea, eight minutes down Highway 1, and a good share of our work has always been Monterey: restaurants on Alvarado Street, the city itself, the school district, a private air carrier at the airport, the Peninsula's 24-hour veterinary hospital. We come to you.

How much does web design cost in Monterey?

Simple sites of four to eight pages are $3,200. Most mid-size business sites of eight to fifteen pages run $4,500 to $7,000. Larger builds of fifteen pages and up, or anything with e-commerce or booking, run $7,500 to $15,000. A commercial photo shoot of your business is included in every tier, and you get a firm written number before any work starts.

Do you do more than websites?

Websites are one of eight things we do, and most Monterey clients come to us for several. Graphic design, print, large-format printing, signage, apparel, social media, and commercial photography all happen in-house. That is why a Monterey restaurant can get the menu, the website, the photography and the sign out front from one person, in one visual language, instead of from four vendors who have never spoken.

Can you make a sign for my Monterey business?

Yes. Dimensional signs in wood and HDU, waterjet-cut metal, vinyl on MDO and Dibond, vehicle graphics, banners and wayfinding. The Old Monterey Cafe sign on Alvarado Street is ours, and it has been hanging there for years. We design it, have it fabricated, and see it installed.

Do you photograph the work too?

Yes, and it is the main reason to use one studio for all of it. Manny is a working commercial photographer, so your website and your print are built on real photographs of your business rather than stock images. Nami Restaurant on Alvarado Street is a good example: the brand, the advertising and the photography all came from here.

Will my Monterey business show up on Google?

Every site we build ships with the groundwork search engines and AI answer engines look for: fast pages, titles and descriptions written for what people actually search, structured data describing your business and service area, a sitemap, and Search Console setup. For a local business the Google Business Profile matters as much as the website, since it is what appears in the map pack. We set that up alongside the site and make the two agree.

How long does a project take?

A straightforward small-business website is three to six weeks from first conversation to launch, including a photo shoot. A logo or identity is two to four weeks. Print and signage depend on the piece and the install. The schedule is agreed before work starts, and if you have a fixed opening date we work backwards from it.

Are you actually in Monterey?

No, and we would rather say so. The studio is at 764 Lincoln Street in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Monterey is eight minutes away and we are there constantly, but if you want someone whose office is on Alvarado Street, that is not us. What we have instead is thirty years of Monterey clients and work still standing on Monterey streets.

Where We Work

Web design across the Monterey Peninsula.

Looking for a website designer near you? We take web design and website redesign projects in each of these communities, and we come to you.

Carmel-by-the-SeaMontereyPacific GrovePebble BeachCarmel ValleySeasideMarinaSand CitySalinasBig Sur

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