Gorazdo Studio

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Founder and Editor of Creating Freely Magazine, which is a fashion and art publication and platform that showcases emerging creatives and inspiring fashion photography.

For what projects/services did your company hire Gorazdo Studio, and what were your goals?

I hired Gorazdo to build and design my ecommerce website. I wanted to have a gallery of photos that were linked to individual artist biography and portfolio pages, a bookstore, a blog section, and a compelling home page. I also hired Gorazdo to finalize the PDF for my print magazine. They prepared it for print and did an excellent job.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I selected them through the platform Dribble, and I chose them due to their updated, clean looking website design, and their top tier services and affordable prices

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We started off with a "Zoom" video chat meeting to discuss the details of the project, and then finalized them with a simple contract. I had also given the team an organized list of how many web pages I needed, and all of the content that I wanted to put on those pages. I was then given a document with the breakdown of the project trajectory, which showed weekly and monthly tasks. The end of the document had the price summary clearly stated.

We decided on using Vercel and Shopify. We continued communicating through the platforms "Slack" and "Zoom", and stayed up to date with each other throughout the project. The beginning stages included working together on exactly what I wanted the web design to look like (identifying which styles I liked and which I did not like). We then moved on to the functions/features that I wanted to have for the launch.

I was given access to a platform called "Contentful", where I was able to begin uploading my blogs, narrations, and the content for the website biographies. I sent the team all of the website copy, photos, and credits, and they uploaded all of it.

We had frequent check ins to make sure we both liked the direction that the website was going in. After working on this together for 4 months, we completed it just in time for my December New years launch.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

I worked with a group of creatives, and mainly communicated with 2 people: Pavel and Anna. They were the CTO and the Project Manager

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

My community loved the website and the way in which it looks and was designed. They were all excited for their website features and what my company will be able to achieve for them in the coming year. I absolutely love the design and received great feedback from my family and friends. It is exactly what I wanted, and this team was able to deliver.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We used Slack to keep weekly group chat conversations between all of us and were able to set up meeting when we needed to.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were extremely kind, understanding, and knowledgeable. They are wonderful at explaining the process of what they are doing on the backend of the website. I also appreciate the patience I was shown with this team. The project was last minute, and I am a very particular person when it comes to details- yet Gorazdo was still able to do an amazing job and worked very well with me.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I would like to see a way that I can update the website copy myself, because I frequently like to improve my brand message.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of a digital recipe platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Gorazdo Studio?

We needed initial app designs to sell our product to suppliers and for investment purposes.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially talked Gorazdo Studio through a scoping document detailing the 10–12 screens we wanted. These screens included a discovery section with video and images, a recipe page, and a step-by-step cooking page. They went away and came back with a quote that we greenlighted. 

From there, the Gorazdo Studio team created initial wireframes for us and we gave them some feedback to tweak them. After that, they padded up the wireframes with a bit more style and design to look like a finished app.

They did the entire design in Figma, and they built it to work on both Android and iOS. At the end of two weeks, they handed in their final delivery.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Pavel (Co-Founder & CTO) and Anna (Co-Founder & CCO). 

How did you come to work with Gorazdo Studio?

I put up a pitch on Dribbble. Gorazdo Studio was one of the providers that responded, and we liked what they said. 

We had an initial call with Pavel and Anna and walked them through what we were trying to do on a high level. Then, we went into a bit more detail on a follow-up call. 

In the end, we chose Gorazdo Studio because their interests aligned with ours. We could tell from speaking to them that they had a genuine interest in the product, in cooking, and recipes generally, and we quite liked that. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about €3,000 (approximately $3,400 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November–December 2021.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’re very happy with the designs Gorazdo Studio created for us. Although we don’t have any hard metrics, we appreciated that working with them was a collaborative process that resulted in a very good product. 

How did Gorazdo Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed very well from a project management perspective. Gorazdo Studio stuck to the timeline; they delivered within the two weeks they initially quoted. 

We used Figma to collaborate. In terms of communication, we used Google Spaces to chat and Google Meets for calls. They were very available and had quick responses on Google Spaces, where we had an ongoing conversation throughout the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed by the speed at which Gorazdo Studio worked. Additionally, I appreciated that they were clearly passionate about food; though that’s very specific to us, it’s part of why we ended up choosing them.

We valued their strong opinions, and though we didn’t necessarily agree with all of them, they took feedback well.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any constructive feedback for them; they were very good and collaborative.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s helpful to have a scoping document that you can run through with Gorazdo Studio. We were relatively prescriptive, giving them a good foundation to work with, which they expanded with other ideas. Having examples of designs that you like from other apps or websites also helps speed things up. 

Moreover, I recommend communicating with the Gorazdo Studio team; they’re very responsive, which is an advantage of working with them.