UX/UI design and engineering for platforms that matter.
Third Eye Open is a senior studio. We build product experiences, operational platforms, and intelligent systems for teams who ship.
Senior people. Real platforms. Shipped work.
Third Eye Open is a Manchester-based design and engineering studio. We build digital platforms, operational systems, AI-assisted decision tools and digital twins for organisations who need senior delivery without the noise of a large agency.
Our work runs in production at tier-one ports, in healthcare and recruitment platforms, in consumer rewards systems serving millions, and in the operational environments where bad design has real consequences.
No offshoring. No juniors leading the work. Every engagement led by senior practitioners with shipped, in-production experience.
Four productised engagements.
Most of our work falls into four shapes. Each is a defined offer with a clear scope, audience and starting point — designed to fit how organisations actually buy senior delivery capability.
White Label Partnership
Senior development and product delivery, behind your brand. For agencies and product teams who need world-class delivery without the overhead. Discreet by default. Embedded by design.
Explore the partnership →Digital Twins
Real-time digital twin design and delivery for infrastructure, operations and intelligent systems. From rapid stakeholder demos to production-grade operational platforms running on Unreal Engine and live IoT data.
See our digital twin work →Platform Health Check
Independent platform audits scored across six categories. From £495 rapid snapshot to full codebase due diligence — for CTOs, founders and investors who need to know what they're working with. We assess the build, not the builders.
View the four tiers →Product Design
Senior UX, UI and product design for platforms, operational systems and complex environments. Built by a UK studio with shipped, in-production experience across consumer, industrial and operational software.
See how we design →How we design and build digital products.
Every engagement combines four core capabilities. Most projects use more than one. The mix scales with the platform's complexity, the operational stakes, and where in its lifecycle the work needs to land — early-stage discovery, mid-build delivery or post-launch optimisation.
Strategy & Discovery
Stakeholder workshops, user research, technical discovery and product definition. We get into the operational reality of what you are building before drawing a single screen or writing a single line of code. Discovery typically takes 2 to 4 weeks; the output is a defensible roadmap, not a deck of slides.
UX, UI & Product Design
Senior interface and product design for platforms that ship. We design for production — real users, real data, real engineering constraints — not for portfolio screenshots. Every screen is designed to be operated, not admired. Design systems shipped as production-ready libraries, not Figma files that die on day one.
Engineering & Platform Build
Modern stack platform engineering across React, Next.js, Vue, Node, Python and headless architectures. We build platforms that hold up under load, scale without rebuilds, and survive engineering handover with their original intent intact. Specialist capability in real-time 3D, geospatial data, IoT integration and AI-assisted systems.
Optimisation & Evolution
Continuous improvement, feature releases and platform evolution after launch. Once a platform is live, the real work starts — responding to user behaviour, scaling features, improving performance, evolving the design system. Many of our longest engagements are post-launch partnerships, not greenfield builds.
Selected work.
Platforms in production. Working at scale. Shipped under brands you have heard of, and several you have not.
Motoring — Corporate Platform Design
Brand strategy, UX architecture and headless platform engineering for the corporate face of one of the UK's most-used consumer automotive brands.
Airtime — Headless Platform Engineering
Multi-year platform partnership delivering a fully custom headless platform for a consumer rewards business serving millions through tier-one telecoms partnerships.
Quay Twin — Smart Port Digital Twin
Real-time digital twin platform for Abu Dhabi Ports Authority. Built from a video brief to a fully navigable, pixel-streamed operational system in eight weeks.
Waterside Holiday Group — Multi-Platform UX
Year-long digital transformation unifying booking, ownership and on-park experience journeys for one of the UK's largest independent holiday park operators.
How we think about the work.
Systems thinking
We design platforms as connected ecosystems, not collections of screens. Every interface decision, data flow and integration is considered against the platform's wider operational context — because real platforms exist inside other systems, not in a vacuum.
Design discipline
Clarity, hierarchy and usability without visual noise. We design for the people operating the platform, not the people approving the screenshots. The interfaces that survive are the ones that get out of the way.
Technical alignment
Design grounded in engineering reality from day one. We design what we know we can build, build what we know will hold up, and tell you privately if a brief needs to change rather than discovering it in production. No surprises in handover.
Why teams choose us.
Most agencies optimise for the pitch. We optimise for the production environment six months after launch — when the demo polish has worn off and the platform has to actually run.
We do not subcontract. We do not offshore. We do not staff senior work with juniors. Every engagement is led by practitioners with shipped, in-production experience of the work we are doing for you. The person who scopes your project is the person who delivers it.
We tell the truth in scoping, including when the truth is unwelcome. We will not pitch a rebuild if the evidence does not support one. We will not bill for work outside the audit. We will not surface a difficult finding in a stakeholder meeting when a private call would do. None of this is unusual; it is just rarer than it should be.
Common Questions
Common questions.
What founders, CTOs and product leaders typically ask before starting a conversation.
What kinds of organisations do you work with?
Product-led companies scaling consumer or operational platforms, founders building investor-grade product before the engineering team is in place, leadership teams modernising legacy systems, and creative agencies who need a senior product and engineering partner behind their brand. Our work tends to share one quality: real users with real jobs to do, in production environments where design and engineering have to hold up under load.
Where are you based, and where do you work?
We are based in Manchester, UK. Most of our clients are UK and European, with project work shipped to global audiences — including tier-one consumer brands, government stakeholders in the Gulf, and international port authorities. Our team is fully remote-capable and we work in your tools, your tone and your process.
Do you do design only, build only, or both?
Both. Some engagements are design-only with handover to your in-house team or another build partner. Some are engineering-only on a brief from your design team. Most are integrated design and engineering. Whichever shape suits the work.
What does an engagement typically cost?
Most partnerships run on monthly retainer, fixed-scope project fee or embedded day-rate, depending on what suits your delivery model. Our Platform Health Check has fixed-fee tiers starting at £495 for a rapid snapshot. For larger engagements, scope and commercials are agreed privately after discovery.
Can we start small to test the working relationship?
Yes. Many partnerships start with a single project — a discovery sprint, a prototype, a design audit, a Platform Health Check — to test the working relationship before moving to a retained or embedded arrangement. We prefer it that way too. Partnerships need to be proved, not assumed.
How quickly can you start?
Discovery sprints and Platform Health Check engagements typically start within 1 to 2 weeks of agreement. Larger engagements are scoped on availability — we keep deliberate capacity for new work but we do not over-commit. If we cannot start when you need us, we will tell you.