The Credits at the Back: Why Your Site Should Name Its Type, Tools and Trade-Offs

I keep a small shelf of books that tell you how they were made. Not the ones with a two-page acknowledgements section and a blurry author photo. The ones with a colophon at the back: set in this typeface, printed on that paper, bound by a firm in Cornwall that has been folding signatures since 1902. It is a tiny act of disclosure, and it makes the whole object feel more honest.

Your website can do the same thing. Not because anyone is desperate to know which CSS framework you tolerate, but because naming the bits behind the page is a quiet way of saying: a person made this, on purpose, with limits.

The page nobody asks for, and everybody reads

Call it a colophon, a credits page, a 'how this was made' note — the label matters less than the habit. It sits near the footer, maybe linked from the about page, and it answers a question most visitors will never ask out loud: what am I looking at, and who put it together?

For a UK creative, that question has a commercial edge. You are asking people to trust you with a project, a budget, a bit of their reputation. A short page that names your typefaces, your build tools and your hosting does not prove you are good. It proves you are attentive. And attentive is a decent proxy for good when someone is deciding whether to email you.

What it is not

It is not a gear-review blog. Nobody needs a 900-word defence of your text editor. It is not a behind-the-scenes diary either — the bit where you explain that the homepage took four months because of a house move and a bad shoulder. Save that for the pub.

It is also not a technical spec sheet. A list of every plugin you installed is not craft; it is a confession with no punchline.

The colophon works when it is short, specific and slightly opinionated. Three or four paragraphs, a handful of named choices, one line about a constraint. That is enough.

What to put on it

Think of it as the credits at the back of a book, not the index. Name the things that shaped the thing.

• Typefaces. The display face, the text face, and where they came from. If you used a free font, say so. If you paid for a licence, say that too — it is a small signal that you respect other people's work.
• Build tools. The CMS, the framework, the static site generator, the thing you hand-coded badly and then fixed. Keep it to the ones that matter.
• Hosting. A UK host, a big cloud, a mate's server in a cupboard in Leeds. Naming it is fine; explaining your uptime philosophy is not.
• Images and illustration. Where they came from, who made them, whether they are stock or yours.
• Constraints. This is the good bit. One line about the budget, the timeline, the accessibility requirement, the fact that you built it on a train. Constraints are what make craft visible.

A template you can steal

Here is a page that would take twenty minutes and then sit quietly for years. Swap the details; keep the tone.

How this site was made

This site is set in [typeface] for headings and [typeface] for text, both licensed from [foundry]. Body text is 18px because I am forty-six and I refuse to squint.

It runs on [platform] and is hosted by [host] in [UK city]. The build is deliberately plain: no page builder, no plugin stack, no cleverness I cannot fix on a Tuesday.

Photographs are by [name] unless otherwise noted. The illustrations are mine, drawn badly on purpose.

Constraints: I built this in a fortnight between paid work, on a budget of about [£X]. It is accessible to WCAG [level] as far as I can test it, and it will be reviewed once a year whether it needs it or not.

Last updated: [Month Year].

That is it. No manifesto. No 'journey'. Just the facts, with a bit of voice.

Why it earns trust

There is a particular kind of confidence in a site that tells you how it was made. It says the maker is not hiding behind a theme. It says the choices were choices, not accidents. And for a UK audience that is used to a certain amount of polite understatement, it lands well: here is what I did, here is what I used, here is what I could not afford.

It also does something practical. When a potential client asks 'can you work with our CMS?' or 'do you handle hosting?', the colophon is already answering. It saves a round of emails. It makes you look like someone who has thought about the boring parts.

And it is low-maintenance. A colophon does not need a content calendar. It needs an update when you change a typeface or move host, and a date at the bottom so people know it is not stale. That is less admin than a blog, less vanity than an awards page, and more useful than a 'Powered by' badge in the footer.

The small print that says something bigger

I am not suggesting every freelancer needs a colophon. If your site is three pages and a contact form, fine. But if you are asking people to believe you care about detail, a short page naming the type, the tools and the trade-offs is a decent way to show it. It is a love letter to the how, written in plain English, signed with a date.

Put it near the footer. Link it from the about page. Then leave it alone. The best credits are the ones you barely notice — until you need them.