Independent by design
An independent studio.
A personal investment.
Vorgestern is one independent studio: strategy, design, copy and search work from the same desk, with nothing added just to look like an agency.
How the studio works
One person, the whole brief
Vorgestern was founded in 2018 by Nick, an Australian-born designer and marketer who started out working alone from an apartment in Melbourne. What began as one person taking on projects directly is now a studio based in Atlanta, Georgia, working with service businesses in every state. The work has scaled; the structure has not.
There are no account managers, no middlemen between the brief and the build, and no templates borrowed from somebody else’s client. The person who scopes the strategy on the first call is the same person who designs the site, writes the copy and ships the code.
Vorgestern (n.) German for the day before yesterday. The name is a reminder that the fundamentals have not changed since then.
Good design has to carry its weight commercially or it is not good design. Every engagement starts with strategy—what a visitor should do on a page, and why they would do it—before anything is drawn. Speed, SEO and usability are built into the first draft, not patched on before launch, because a slow site or one that search engines cannot read does not get a second chance to earn a client. The build itself runs on whatever the brief actually needs: WordPress, Shopify, React or a fully custom stack. The platform is a means, not a pitch.
Every engagement
What every project gets, without exception
No account managers
You talk to Nick on the first call, and you talk to Nick on the last one. Nothing gets relayed down a chain.
No templates
Every build starts from your brief, not a theme with the colours swapped.
Strategy before pixels
A plan for what a visitor should do, and why, exists before any design work starts.
Speed and SEO from day one
Performance and search structure are part of the build, not a pass added after launch.
Clear pricing
A fixed scope and a number before anything starts. No surprise invoices.
Honest reporting
You see the same numbers Nick sees. If something is not working, that is what the report says.
Ready when you are