The Big Idea, Revisited: why I created Big Eye Deers

We asked Steve, eighteen years in, to take a look back at why he set up Big Eye Deers and what his non-negotiables are and this is what he said.

I still bet on craftsmanship and pixel perfection. I didn’t start Big Eye Deers to chase the biggest projects; I built it to launch the best ones.

When I set the company up, I’d seen too many “good enough” launches: pretty on a moodboard, painful on a mobile, and wobbling the moment traffic got spicy. I wanted a studio where the small choices got as much love as the big ones – where a checkout stays calm on Black Friday, where a PDP looks sharp and feels sharp, and where the team cares about the outcome as much as the client does. That’s still the point. It’s also why I turn down work that wants shortcuts over standards.

We’re Big Eye Deers – a UK eCommerce agency (Cardiff & Exeter) with a simple promise: build fast, accessible, resilient storefronts on Magento and Shopify, and sweat the details that customers actually notice.

What “craft” means to me:

• Thoughtful design: Start with the problem, not the trend. If it doesn’t help the customer, it’s noise.
• Pixel-level detail: Spacing, states, typography, focus – sweated, documented, consistent.
• Performance as a constraint: Fast pages by design, not by clean-up.
• Accessibility baked in: Real keyboard paths, real contrast, real empathy.
• Reliability under load: The invisible stuff that keeps tills ringing when everyone shows up at once.

Why I still obsess over pixels

“Pixel perfection” isn’t faffing with drop shadows at midnight. It’s making the micro decisions that stack up to trust: labels that make sense, buttons that behave, images that don’t jump, forms that don’t fight back. Get that right and the macro – conversion, loyalty, lifetime value – usually follows.

I’m a lifelong Nike wearer for exactly that reason: the line of the swoosh, the way the stitching sits, how a pair still feels right years later. That quiet attention to detail is the same energy we bring to an eCommerce build.

On ideas (or, if you’ll indulge me, eye-deers )

Good ideas are everywhere; good eye-deers, the ones that look right and work right, are rarer. We don’t chase every shiny thing; we pick the right eye-deer, then sweat it, pixel by pixel, until customers feel the difference. (Last pun, promise).

How I run builds (Magento & Shopify)

• Discovery with a purpose: We get clear on business goals, margins, delivery rules and the jobs your site actually has to do.
• Design system > one-off pages: Reusable components for headers, menus, PDP galleries, promos and forms—so trading is faster, not fussier.
• Performance & accessibility budgets: Guardrails we defend like margin. Less page weight, fewer scripts, predictable interactions.
• Engineering without drama: On Magento, that might mean a lighter frontend (Hyvä) and sane extension choices; on Shopify, staying inside Checkout Extensibility so you keep scope small and speed high.
• Content & data hygiene: Product names, size guides, delivery info—cleaned, consistent, plain English. The unglamorous work that powers conversion.
• Real-world QA: We test on actual devices and throttled connections, not just designer Wi-Fi. We use Lighthouse for lab checks and confirm gains with field data.
• Launch and care: Post-launch tuning, not tinkering; a change log your CFO will love; improvements that stick.

What clients actually feel

• Confidence at checkout: it just works, peak after peak.
• Momentum: launches land on time because the codebase isn’t fighting you.
• Fewer surprises: cleaner data, clearer promises, calmer support inboxes.
• Better numbers: faster pages, lower bounce, higher add-to-basket; Core Web Vitals that stop scaring SEO.

When craft pays off (a few patterns we see)

• Department-store complexity, simple journeys: Big catalogues don’t need big menus; they need great search and filters, clear categories, and fewer dead-ends.
• Promotion sanity: Fewer, clearer offers, explained on PDP, basket and checkout – beat overlapping wizardry every time.
• Checkout calm: Fewer fields, fewer surprises, sensible payment options. The good kind of boring, the kind that converts.
• Sustainable speed: Cutting bloat and keeping to a design system means your site stays fast as it grows.

Why I built it this way (and why I keep going)

I started Big Eye Deers because I wanted a studio where craft wasn’t an afterthought. Where designers and developers sit together, defend speed and accessibility, and make the kind of small, consistent choices that earn customer trust. Eighteen years on, that’s still the culture: thoughtful design, pixel-level attention, and an honest focus on outcomes. It’s why clients stick with us – not just for launch, but for the long haul.

If that sounds like the sort of partner you’ve been looking for, let’s talk. Bring your goals, your constraints, and your best ideas. We’ll bring our eye for the details that move the numbers.

Big on ideas, sharp on detail, deadly serious about results.