Solo designer. Studio-grade everything. Without the studio.
Juno stopped sending PDFs from a Gmail address and started sending proposals from a branded portal on studio.junoatelier.com. Her average project rate climbed from $6k to $11k inside a year, and three prospects asked which agency she worked for.
Juno AtelierProject proposal
Prepared for the boardProject proposal
Avg. project value$6k → $11k
Proposal send time~4h → <1h
Active portals28
Avg. project value$6k → $11kyear on year
Proposal send time~4h → <1hper project
Active portals28on custom domain
The challenge
Solo. Looked solo. Priced solo.
Juno has been an independent brand designer for six years, working mostly with DTC and hospitality founders out of Austin. The work itself was the easiest part. The packaging around the work was the trap. Proposals went out as PDFs from a Gmail address, laid out in InDesign on a Sunday night, with a header that said 'Juno Park, Designer' in the corner. The PDFs looked like a freelancer because they were sent by a freelancer.
The pricing followed. Prospects opened with 'what's your day rate' instead of 'tell us about the work'. Two referrals in a row went to the same agency at three times Juno's number after a friendlier-looking pitch. She did not lose those projects on the design. She lost them on the document.
“A founder I'd been talking to for a month replied to my first portal link with 'love what your studio's been doing'. I'd never used the word 'studio'. The portal had. I sent the next proposal at a higher rate the same week and she signed it without flinching.”
Juno ParkFounder, brand designer, Juno Atelier
The approach
The studio she always was, just visible.
Juno set up Docsiv on a custom domain at studio.junoatelier.com. Every prospect gets a branded portal under that domain, with her wordmark at the top and the client's brand colour as the accent. Studio drafts the first version of each proposal in her voice, using the last two years of her best engagement letters as the source of tone. She edits, prices, and sends, all from one tab.
Project delivery lives in the same place. Brand directions, type explorations, the final logo files, the brand book PDF, the invoice. Clients sign in once and the work shows up where they left it. The portal itself does some of the selling on the first visit, before Juno has said a word.
The outcome
Same designer. Different pricing conversation.
Average project value rose from $6,000 to $11,000 across the first year of running this way. The shift was not a rate hike Juno enforced in any single conversation. It was that the opening question from prospects stopped being 'what's your day rate' and started being 'what would you charge for this'. The proposal had already changed what kind of vendor she looked like.
Twenty-eight active client portals run on her custom domain. Three prospects in the same quarter referred to the practice as 'your studio' in their first reply, unprompted. Juno has not corrected any of them.
AI proposal draftingCustom domainBranded client portalsProject delivery & invoicing
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