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Designova Studio

2026Designova StudioLive at designova.net

A UI/UX agency platform for Designova Studio: a public marketing site plus an admin dashboard and client dashboard for managing projects, quotes, and invoices, built end-to-end from Figma to production.

Live Preview
Designova Studio – screenshot 1

Context

The Problem

Designova is a UI/UX design studio founded in Berlin in 2012, now running globally with its core team based in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The studio needed more than a marketing site: leads, quotes, invoices, and client projects were being tracked outside any single system, and clients had no way to check progress without emailing the team directly.

No client-facing view into project status or milestonesQuotes and invoices handled outside the main workflowLeads had no clear path from enquiry to signed client

My Role

Design

  • Designed the public site, admin dashboard, and client dashboard as one system, dark and light mode
  • Designed the quote and invoice templates clients see directly
  • WCAG 2.0 accessible forms and navigation

Frontend

  • Next.js 16 and React 19 across the public site, admin, and client dashboard
  • Project tracking, milestones, file sharing, and messaging in the client dashboard
  • React Hook Form and Zod for contact, quote, and dashboard forms

Backend

  • Supabase (PostgreSQL, auth) for admin and client accounts
  • Server-rendered PDF generation for quotes and invoices, stored in Cloudflare R2
  • Resend for email, Cloudflare Turnstile for spam protection, Stripe for invoice payments

Infrastructure & DevOps

  • Vercel for deployment
  • Cloudflare R2 for case study media and generated PDFs
  • Cron jobs and Jira/Discord webhooks for internal notifications

Solution & Process

Design Validation

Designed around the studio's real funnel: a home page that leads into services and featured case studies, a case studies section that doubles as the portfolio, and a contact flow that turns into a quote, then an invoice, without the client ever needing a separate tool to track it.

Technical Stack Selection

Built on Next.js 16 with the App Router, using Supabase for Postgres and authentication across both the admin and client dashboards. Cloudflare R2 handles case study media and generated PDFs, Resend sends transactional email, and Cloudflare Turnstile protects the public contact and newsletter forms from spam.

Technical Decisions & Trade-offs

Chose Supabase over a custom auth and database setup so the team could focus on the client, project, and invoice logic instead of building authentication from scratch, while still getting row-level security for separating admin and client data.