The handoff that makes a redesign usable after the studio leaves

A redesign is usable after the studio leaves when three things are in your hands: the repository, a map of the content, and a place the brand files live. A website design handoff is that transfer. A folder of exports and a farewell call will not substitute for it.

The site can look finished and still be stuck. Nobody knows which login edits the homepage. The logo on the site and the logo in a chat thread disagree. A month later, a small campaign requires the studio to come back for an hour of archaeology. Handoff is how you prevent the archaeology.

The repository is yours

You should be able to open the code, run a preview, and see the site you just approved. The repository lives in an account your company owns. The studio can be a collaborator. The studio should not be the only owner of the history.

A useful repo has a short readme that says how to install, how to preview, and where the public pages are composed. It names the stack in plain words. For a Hanabi project that is typically Next.js, React, and TypeScript, styled with Tailwind, deployed on Vercel, with content and records in the tools the project actually chose. The point of naming them in the handoff is that your next developer is not guessing.

Secrets stay out of the repo. The handoff includes a list of environment variables and which account holds each one: hosting, domain, database, image storage, the form inbox. Values go through a password manager you control. A screenshot of a dashboard is a poor secret and a poorer explanation.

Ask for a commit that matches the launched site, and for the branch you are supposed to use next. A handoff of "the latest is somewhere on my machine" is not a handoff. You want the launched state recoverable on the day someone makes a mistake.

A content map, not a tour

The content map is a page that lists each public url, what it is for, and where its words live. Homepage headline, project names, the about paragraph, the label on the button. If those are in a CMS, the map names the collection and the field. If they are in code, the map names the file.

This is the artifact an editor will open on a Tuesday. It should be dull and complete. Include the title element for each page, written so it describes that page. Google's title-link guidance treats the title as a primary clue in search results, and it asks for descriptive, distinct text rather than one boilerplate phrase on every url. A handoff that ships a single slogan as every title has created a problem the next editor will not know to look for. Put the titles in the map and make them specific.

Include the images. For each significant picture: the file name, the alt text, and what may be swapped without breaking the crop. A redesign that depended on a particular photograph should say so. The next person can still change it. They should know what the layout was counting on.

Walk the map once with the person who will edit. Change a headline in preview and change it back. The walk is part of the handoff. A document nobody has used is a draft.

Add the forms to the same map. Where a submission arrives, who is notified, and what a reasonable reply looks like. A redesigned contact page that delivers into an inbox the team does not check is a silent failure. Name the inbox during the walk, and send a test message while you are both watching it land.

Brand files live in one place

Logos, marks, type files, color values, and a few sentences of voice need a home that is not a zip file in a chat. People will look in the place you teach them to look. If that place is three threads and a desktop folder, the brand will fork within a quarter.

Hanabi's client portal is the concrete version of this home. After delivery it holds brand files, docs, and project updates. The logo they should use is the one in the portal. The note about clear space is next to it. An update about the project does not have to be reconstructed from email. A portal is only useful if it is the agreed shelf. The handoff includes showing the client where that shelf is and who can invite a teammate.

If you are not using a portal, pick one other shelf and stick to it. A shared drive with a single folder named for the brand, with final files separated from explorations, will do. What will not do is "the latest is in the Figma, except the icon, which is in Slack."

Write three sentences of voice into that same place. The sentences you are willing to say, and one you will not. The next page someone adds will sound closer to the redesign if those lines are where the logo is.

What the studio still explains

Handoff includes a working session, short and recorded if the team wants a reference. Cover how to publish, how a draft is previewed, and what requires a developer. Cover reduced motion if the site moves: where the still or instant version lives, and why it is part of done. Cover analytics enough that someone can see whether the primary action is used.

Leave a decision log. The major choices, in a few lines each. Why the navigation is short. Why a page was cut. Why the shop urls were preserved. The next review will go better if the team can see those reasons without calling anyone.

Name a support window if one was sold, and name what is outside it. A handoff that implies infinite unpaid memory will sour. A handoff that ends with a clear owner, a repo, a map, and a shelf will survive a busy month.

Google's people-first content guidance asks who created a page and whether a reader can tell. The same question belongs inside the company. After handoff, someone on your side should be able to say who changes the site, how a change is previewed, and why the page exists. If those answers are "the studio, somehow," the transfer is incomplete.

A checklist you can finish in one sitting

Use this list in the final call. Each line is either done or it is the agenda.

• The company owns the repository, the domain, the hosting, and the analytics.
• A readme explains preview and deploy in steps a new developer can follow.
• A content map lists urls, fields, titles, and the inbox for forms.
• Brand files and the voice lines live in one shelf, and the team has opened it.
• A decision log records the few choices the next editor would otherwise relitigate.
• Someone on the team has changed a headline in a preview and sent a test of the form.

When that list is true, the studio can leave and the redesign remains a tool. The shelf itself, and why a portal is more than a download, is the subject of what a client portal is for.

The work leading up to that shelf, from the page design through the build, is the kind of engagement described in Hanabi's services.