§00 — The studio
A studio that designs & builds tools for the parts of life that should be simpler.
Howell & Gibbs is a two-principal design and engineering practice in New York City, founded by Holly Gibbs and Liam Howell. We work mostly in civic tech, and on software that has to be careful with people’s time, money, and information.
Case 001
SendTax · In progress
Availability
July–October
Reply time
Usually within a day
Office
New York City
§01 — How we work
The approach
Two principals. No juniors, no handoffs, no project managers between you and the people doing the work. Holly leads design. Liam leads engineering. We sit at the same table.
We’ve shipped together, and each of us has shipped civic-tech work the other helped sharpen. We know how design and engineering have to talk to each other inside regulated work, because we are both sides of the conversation — and our next projects are already underway.
§02 — What we offer
The services
We take on whole projects, not pieces: a designer and an engineer who’ve already shipped together. We also offer the specific skills that stand on their own. We take a small number of clients each year, and we take them seriously.
Design & engineering
Teams & operations
§03 — Who we work with
The clients
Civic tech and public-interest organizations. NYC government and local agencies, and the nonprofits and tools that work alongside them. Teams in tax, benefits, healthcare, and the parts of finance where someone is filling out a form they don’t want to be filling out.
If the screen has someone’s paperwork, money, or attention on it, we want to make it less stressful to look at.
§04 — Selected
The work
§05 — Start a conversation
Contact
Tell us what you’re building. The hard parts, the stuck parts, the parts you can’t tell if you should be doing yourselves.