Background – A tool named for the trail it leaves behind

Jack Boberg, a partner at Studio Elsa, built Stig on the side: a command-line tool that handles forward-only SQLite migrations, takes filesystem snapshots for local rollback, and generates schema-aware code straight from the live database. He named it stig, Swedish for "path" or "footpath," after working through dozens of other candidates. It fits the tool's core idea: each migration is a step forward, and each snapshot is a footprint left behind.

Process – Locking the identity before writing a line of site copy

We started with a mood board, refined once against Jack's feedback into a single lockup: an italic wordmark with a wavy, colour-dotted trail woven through it. That same trail idea became the diagram language Stig's seven usage scenarios needed, so a migration reads the same way whether it's in the logo or in a diagram.

For the site, we mocked up three directions and tested them: Trailhead (dark plum, motif-forward, Baskerville italic headlines), Field Guide, and Command Line. Trailhead won, and set the tone for every section that followed.

Solution – Trailhead, built out across the whole site

The finished identity: olive #96AA43, teal #0683AE, red #C23B33, and plum #43273B, carried through the mark, favicon, and social variants.

The site covers all nine sections a developer needs to evaluate the tool: hero, story, what Stig does, usage, quickstart, command reference, diagrams, open source, and footer. The diagrams section applies the trail-waypoint treatment to all seven usage scenarios, including three that branch (snapshot pruned, SQL error, dry run) as forked mini-trail cards. Every line of copy comes straight from Stig's own README, so the page never claims more than the tool does.

It's live now at stig.jackboberg.info.