The Studio · Inside the Studio
One place for everything we're building together.
Inside the Studio — your client portal. The place where your engagement with House Left lives, from first brief to final invoice. Your projects, deliverables, requests, and invoices in one place, accessible to you and organized by us.
Why a Portal
Most work happens across a dozen channels.
Email threads. Texts. A shared drive someone created last season. Half-remembered phone calls. Important things get buried. Files go missing. Two weeks later you're hunting through your inbox for "that approved version" — and it's gone.
Inside the Studio replaces all of that. Everything we deliver to you stays where you can find it. Every request you make is tracked. Every invoice is visible. Nothing depends on anyone remembering to forward an email.
What You Get
A clean, branded space at studio.houseleft.com — built around how the work actually moves.
Home Dashboard
Where things stand.
A welcome view with your active retainer hours, recent activity, status this week, and the resources we've gathered for you. Open it once and you know where everything is.
Projects
Each engagement, structured.
Every project gets its own page with tabs for requests, tasks, events, files, and time logged. Drill into what matters without hunting for it.
Requests
Both directions, tracked.
Submit a new request from anywhere in the portal — title, details, optional due date. We accept it (with project, hours, and timeline) or decline with a reason. Files and approvals we need from you live in the same place.
Tasks
Open, respond, done.
Tasks assigned to you open into a full view — what we need, files we've shared, a place to upload yours, and a note field for context. Mark it done when you're ready.
Messages
A direct line, kept.
Two-way conversations tied to a specific task, project, or just general — with file attachments and unread indicators. Quick questions land in the right place. Nothing gets buried in a thread.
Calendar
The month, in one glance.
A full month view with your tasks, accepted requests, our deadlines visible to you, and events — color-coded so you can read it at speed. Tap any chip for the detail. Add your own events too.
Invoices
All in one place.
Every invoice we've issued, with status. Outstanding balance front and center. Click any invoice to view, print, or save the PDF — paid invoices carry a clear watermark.
Time & Hours
Every minute, accountable.
See the time logged on your engagement, broken down by date, project, and task. Retainers show this week's bar with banked credit. Hourly clients see running totals. Fixed-fee projects show progress against scope.
How We Engage
Three ways to work with us — chosen to fit your rhythm.
Designers, pageant directors, event producers, and creative teams don't all work the same way. Some need ongoing weekly support; some have a single project with a clear scope; some just need help when something specific comes up. The portal looks the same either way — only the way we bill changes.
Option One
Recurring retainer
A set number of hours each week, dedicated to your work. Unused hours bank into credit, so a quiet week isn't lost. Predictable, ongoing, and the rhythm we know best.
Fits designers in collection cycles · brands with steady output · directors juggling year-round programs
Option Two
Fixed-fee project
A defined engagement with an agreed scope and price. One pageant, one event, one launch — clear deliverables, clear timeline, clear cost. The portal tracks progress against scope.
Fits pageant productions · single events · capsule launches · one-off creative projects
Option Three
Hourly, as needed
Pay for the time we spend, billed in arrears. No commitment, no minimum. Useful for occasional needs or when you're unsure how much support a project will require.
Fits vendors and models · short-term needs · trial engagements · one-off requests
All three engagement types use the same portal — same projects, same calendar, same messaging, same files. The only difference is what your Time & Hours view looks like and how invoices are structured.
How It Fits
It's simple. It's how we work together.
A Typical Cycle
You sign in Monday morning. Your home dashboard shows recent activity, a draft asset waiting on your review, and one open task — upload an updated headshot for the press kit. You handle the headshot before noon. A new idea comes up over coffee: you want a one-pager for an upcoming meeting. You tap + New request, give it a title and a due date, and submit.
Tuesday the request is accepted — assigned to your active project, three estimated hours, due Friday. It lands on your calendar in gold. A quick question comes up about the leave-behind: you open Messages, tag the conversation to that task, and ask. The reply comes a few hours later — same thread, attached file. No email chain to lose.
The revision is delivered Wednesday under the project's Files tab and shows up in your activity feed. You have three days to approve it or request a change. No response within three days is treated as approval — the work is invoiced and the invoice appears in your Invoices tab automatically.
No back-and-forth emails. No wondering where things stand. Both sides see the same calendar, the same files, the same conversations.
Inside the Portal
Inside your portal.
A few representative views — the home dashboard, your calendar, a project's deliverables, and the invoice list.
Home Dashboard
Welcome view
A summary of where everything stands the moment a client signs in.
Calendar
The month, in one view
Your tasks, accepted requests, our deadlines visible to you, and events — color-coded across the month. Tap any chip for the detail.
Project View
Deliverables, kept
Every file we deliver stays in the project. Download anytime, weeks or years later.
Task Detail
Open. Respond. Done.
Click a task and everything you need is right there — what we sent, what we asked, the conversation, and one button to close it out.
Messages
A direct line, kept
Two-way conversations tagged to a task, project, or just general. Files attach. Unread badges show what's new.
Invoices
All in one place
Every invoice we've issued — issue date, due date, amount, status. Download any of them, anytime.
Privacy & Access
Your portal is yours alone.
Other House Left clients can't see your projects, files, or invoices. Sign-in is gated by email — only the addresses on your client record can access the account. You can sign in from any device, and the portal remembers you per-browser, so you don't have to re-authenticate constantly.
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, hosted on Google Cloud's Firebase platform — the same infrastructure used by major financial and healthcare apps. Your data is used to run your portal — nothing else.
House Left Studio
The portal comes with the work. The work starts with a conversation.
If you're considering working with House Left Studio, we'd love to talk about what your engagement might look like — and what your portal would hold.
Common Questions
A few things we hear often.
Does the portal cost extra?
No. It's part of working with House Left Studio. Whether you're on a retainer, billed hourly, or working on a fixed-fee project, the portal comes with it.
How does pricing work?
Three options, picked to fit your work. Retainer for steady ongoing support — a set number of hours each week, with unused hours banked as credit. Fixed-fee project for a defined engagement with agreed scope — a pageant, an event, a launch. Hourly when you just need help with something specific. Actual numbers depend on the engagement and we work that out together at /connect.
Do I have to use it?
You can largely ignore it and we'll still email you the way we always have. But the portal is where the work lives organized — emails are a copy of that, not the source. Once clients sign in once, most prefer it.
Can my team use it?
Yes. Each portal account is tied to a primary email, but additional team members can be added — your assistant, your partner, your accountant — each with their own sign-in. We add team access on request.
What's on the calendar?
Your tasks, your accepted requests with their due dates, our internal deadlines we've made visible to you, and any events we've scheduled — all on one month grid, color-coded so you can read it at a glance. Tap any chip for the detail. You can add your own events too.
How do you and I talk inside the portal?
There's a Messages tab. Conversations can be tagged to a specific task, a whole project, or kept general — so a question about a deliverable lives next to that deliverable, not buried in your inbox. Files attach. Unread messages show a small badge so you know what's new without opening every thread.
How secure are our messages and files?
Messages and files travel over an encrypted connection and are stored encrypted on Google Cloud — the same platform that handles data for major financial and healthcare apps. Each portal is locked to its own client: rules at the database level prevent any other client from reading your conversations, files, or invoices. House Left can read messages between you and us — that's how we reply to them, the same as any email or Slack-style tool. If you ever need a conversation that no one but you and I can read, we'll use Signal for that thread; the portal isn't the right place for it. For everything else — production planning, deliverables, invoices, day-to-day questions — the portal is the secure home for the work.
What if we part ways?
Your portal access ends but your deliverables don't disappear. We can export anything you need — files, invoices, project history — for your records before access is closed.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes — the portal works on any phone or tablet through your browser. You can also add it to your home screen so it opens like an app: on iPhone, tap the Share button in Safari and choose Add to Home Screen; on Android, the browser menu offers Install app. Sign in once and you can review files, reply to messages, complete tasks, and check your calendar from anywhere.
How do I get access?
Once we agree to work together, we add your client record and send a welcome email from studio@houseleft.com. Tap the sign-in link and you're in — no password to remember. The same approach works every time you sign in: enter your email, get a link, tap it.