Selected work

I'd rather show you what I've built than tell you what I can do.

Two products I designed and built with AI, and 20 years of shipping work for clients before that. No borrowed logos, no invented case studies. (The 'I' on this page is Darren - these builds are mine. Kirsty's craft runs the Content Operations retainers, and lives in clients' feeds rather than on portfolio pages.)

20+ yrs
Designing and building for the web
150+
Websites shipped since 2005
£450k/yr
Saved by a single redesign
Track record
£450kSaved every year
18hires avoided

For a UK workplace pension provider, I redesigned a key onboarding journey. It cut call volumes and handling times enough to make a planned round of hiring unnecessary. The same instinct for how people actually use a thing is what I now bring to building AI.

What I build

Two things I designed, directed and shipped with AI.

Both are live. Both were built solo, fast, by directing AI to do the heavy lifting while I kept a hand on the quality. That's the work Digitopia Labs does, pointed at my own projects.

Labs build · Product Sprint proof
I directed it. AI built it.

The Chilli Index

A database of 100+ chilli varieties (and growing), with a side-by-side compare tool and a grow tracker. Scoped, designed, and built start to finish with Claude Code - the same process we run on AI Product Sprint engagements. It exists because I grow chillies, not because we needed a demo.

  • A filterable index of 100+ varieties on one clean data model
  • A side-by-side compare tool for any two varieties
  • A grow tracker with user accounts to log your season
  • An events calendar and an ebook, all in one product
Structured dataFull-stack buildAI-directedShipped fast
Visit thechilliindex.com Read the build story Next.js · Supabase · Vercel
thechilliindex.com
Varieties indexed
100+From Jalapeño to Carolina Reaper, on one schema
Pepper X2,693,000 SHU
Carolina Reaper2,200,000 SHU
Jalapeño8,000 SHU
Labs build · Voice layer proof
Weekend build

Dad Humor

A dad jokes app, now live, with a fully documented brand voice - a PG-with-attitude default register, an opt-in Spicy mode, and slang conventions the AI follows. The same Layer 1 voice infrastructure we build for clients, applied to something deliberately silly. If the method holds for dad jokes, it holds for a professional services firm.

Fast buildProduct designBrand & voice
Visit dadhumor.app Read the build story Next.js · Vercel
What's next

Want something like this, built for your business?

That's what Digitopia Labs does. I build the AI setup that does your actual work, in your voice - same approach, pointed at your business instead of my chilli habit.

Book a call →See the method