V. Contact

Design Studio, Auckland

Believed before it’s read.

The studio

Vela is a design studio for businesses whose first impression has to do the selling.

Strategy, identity, design and build, in one room. Small on purpose, so the person you speak to is the person doing the work.

Based in Auckland, New Zealand. Working with clients wherever they are.

Point of view

Nobody has a website problem. They have a first-impression problem.

Loading fast and listing your services is not an achievement, it is the floor. The only question that matters is whether someone believes you before they have read a single word.

That belief is made of craft. How it moves, how it is spaced, what it does not say.

It cannot be bought as a template and it cannot be faked with a stock photo.

Who we’re for

The business whose first impression is the website

Property

Developments and agencies selling on how a place feels before anyone walks it.

Hospitality

Groups, venues and rooms where the booking decision is made on a phone in ten seconds.

Automotive

Dealerships and marques with stock that deserves better than a listings grid.

Architecture

Practices and interiors whose work is the portfolio, badly served by most portfolio sites.

Studios and clinics

Wellness, movement and treatment brands competing on trust and atmosphere.

Hotels and venues

Boutique operators who lose to the aggregators on price and should win on feeling.

Ambitious Visual Impatient Particular Proud

They are not shopping on price. They are shopping on whether they believe you can make them look like the best option in their market. Most of them have already been burned by a template.

What we moved away from

And toward

CheapConsidered
FastCrafted
LocalWorldwide
VendorStudio
VolumeSelective
AvailableChosen

Approach

Four stages

01

Position

Before anything is drawn we agree what you are, who you are for, and what someone should feel in the first three seconds.

02

Direction

Palette, type, motion and imagery set as one system, signed off before a single page is built.

03

Build

Written by hand, not assembled from a theme. Fast on a phone, sharp on a display, editable by you afterwards.

04

Launch

Search, analytics, structured data and a real handover. Then we watch what people actually do and adjust.

Selected work

Web design

CreamuJapan · Photography

A photographer’s catalogue you fly through rather than page through. Hundreds of frames suspended in depth, moving as you scroll. Visit live

DUOS WynwoodMiami · Property

Forty nine hotel condominiums in Wynwood. A sales site whose whole job is selling a building that is not finished yet. Visit live

SKN AestheticsAuckland · Clinic

Injectables, laser and skin treatments with every price, every duration and every risk published before anyone books. Visit live

dsgn interiorMalmö · Interior architecture

Interior architecture for offices, hotels and public spaces, in Swedish and English. Visit live

Rafaela SalvatoFlorianópolis · Dermatology

A specialist dermatology clinic, built around fifteen years of practice and the technology behind it. Visit live

The Garage Motor GroupAuckland · Automotive

A full rebuild for one of Auckland’s top three used car dealerships. New brand direction, a stock system carrying over 100 cars, and a finance enquiry flow. Visit live

Also from the studio

Walkthrough films

TuscancityAuckland · Property management

A listing’s own photographs turned into a walkthrough film. No shoot, no crew, no scheduling around tenants. Same day. How walkthrough films work

How we talk

Look premium. Sell better. Nothing generic.

Every statement ends. No hedging, no ellipses, no asking permission. It is a small rule that does an enormous amount of work, because certainty is most of what a considered price buys.

The name

Vela is Latin for the sails. It is also a constellation in the southern sky, visible from here and almost nowhere else.

A sail does not generate anything. It catches what is already moving and turns it into direction. That is the job. You already have the product, the room, the story. We turn it into travel.

Contact

Tell us what you are building.

We reply within one working day. If it is not a fit we will say so and point you somewhere better.

Studio

Auckland, New Zealand