QUARTERS

A design collective for product, brand and the people who make them.

A cabinet maker's bench with tools laid out
Workbenchel alce web on Unsplash

Build well.

Make things that last, and that the people who own them can run without us. That is the whole of the Quarters method, and it applies the same way to a product, a brand and a design career.

Every product, brand and design career rests on a few decisions that everything else depends on. Quarters exists to get those right first.

Founded and led by Richard MurphyPractices →
QUARTERS

Product, UX
and compliance

Most products carry more screens than decisions. We start with the decisions.

For founders and CPOs who need senior product design judgement without a full-time hire, or who carry an estate of products that has outgrown its design system. Accessibility and compliance are part of every engagement. We do not price them as extras.

Two people at a table in a working session, one pointing at a whiteboard
Working sessionAdam Rutkowski on Unsplash

Products under one design system.

As Head of Product Design at QikServe, Richard led product strategy, UX, design systems and compliance across 26+ products through to the Access Group acquisition, and grew the design team from one to five across the UK and Brazil.

Founder background, not a Quarters engagement

Close view of a hand drawing a detailed botanical illustration
DrawingGoashape Studio on Unsplash

Brand and
identity

Keep what customers recognise. Re-point the rest.

Identity systems, packaging, retail and digital for independent, challenger and heritage brands, including those that need a digital system around an identity they already love.

The BrotiqueHudson & ArmitageQuarters

A quarter is thirteen weeks.

StartReview / renew or exit

Work is sold by the quarter. You get a fixed horizon, a review point and a clean exit, with the work left running either way.

Per quarter unless fixed / Excluding VAT

Who does the workCollective →
QUARTERS

The person you meet is the person who does the work.

Richard Murphy leaning in the doorway of the original Quarters on Queen Street, Edinburgh
Richard MurphyFounderQueen Street, Edinburgh

Richard leads every engagement. Nothing is handed to someone you have not met.

He spent the last decade leading product design at scale and building brands of his own, starting with The Brotique on Queen Street in 2013. His full career history lives at richardthedesigner.com.

Specialists join per engagement, are introduced by name in the proposal and are credited on everything they make. Members join by invitation, after delivering on an engagement.

  1. Essentials first.
  2. Build well.
  3. Accessible by default.
  4. Name the people.
  5. Plain over clever.

Ranked / When two conflict, the higher one wins

For designersCoaching →
QUARTERS

All are
very welcome.

Coaching and mentoring / For designers and design leads

Two men playing chess at a table in a park
Chess matesNicolas Hippert on Unsplash

Bring the problem you are stuck on.

For designers moving into leadership, and new design leads who have never managed before. Coaching comes from someone who has led teams and is still doing the work, so the advice survives contact with a real team.

  • Format
    Six 60-minute sessions across a quarter
  • Where
    By video, or in person in Edinburgh
  • Fee
    £1,200 individual / £1,800 employer-paid
  • Our rule
    No coachee is recruited into paid work while coaching is live.
Where it beganStory →
QUARTERS
The Quarters lightbox sign on a corner of Queen Street, Edinburgh
Queen Street, Edinburgh2017

Life's essentials are timeless.

Where Quarters came from.

Quarters began in 2017 as a men's essentials brand, made by Richard Murphy out of The Brotique, his store on Queen Street, Edinburgh. Its brand book had a single instruction for customers: buy well.

In 2026 Quarters became a design collective, and the idea came with it. Find the essentials. Get them right.

Buy well became build well.

Started in Edinburgh. Still led from Edinburgh.

An Edinburgh street of sandstone tenements with a clock tower
EdinburghJake Mullins on Unsplash
Start a conversationContact →
QUARTERS

Over
to you.

Tell us the problem as you see it, when it needs solving, and who else is involved. We will set out what we heard and how we would approach it.

EdinburghWorking across the UK

A figure walking out of shadow into bright light under a stone arch
EdinburghGeorge McVeigh on Unsplash