Case Study · Painted Desires
A private client gallery and studio site for a boudoir & fine-art studio.
Painted Desires needed more than a basic portfolio. They wanted a private, trust-focused space where clients could see their images, choose favourites, approve artwork, and receive finished pieces—without being dropped into a generic gallery service.
Private client gallery & studio portal
Custom-built website and galleries, tailored to the artist's process.
Project overview.
Painted Desires is a boudoir and fine-art studio offering intimate photography and hand-painted artwork. Off-the-shelf gallery tools felt cold and transactional—too far from the careful, personal experience clients get in the studio.
Forge & Ember Studios designed and built a custom site and gallery system that keeps everything under the Painted Desires brand: from learning about sessions, to viewing images, to receiving final artwork.
Project details
- Studio
- Painted Desires · Art & Boudoir
- Services
- Custom website, client gallery system, delivery tools
- Built for
- Private galleries, artwork previews, and long-term delivery
- Status
- Live & evolving
What Forge & Ember built.
Instead of stitching together multiple third-party tools, we built a single system that matches how the studio actually works—from first images after a session to the final painting or gallery delivery.
01 · Client gallery
Private viewing experience
- Invite-only client galleries under the studio brand
- Clean, mobile-friendly viewing for clients and partners
- Clear separation between proofs and finished artwork
02 · Studio tools
Organized around real sessions
- Session-based structure instead of loose folders
- Space for reference images, progress shots, and finals
- Designed for sensitive, trust-based client work
03 · Future-ready
Ember-friendly foundation
- Built with EmberPDA integration in mind
- Room for automated reminders and follow-ups later
- Structure that can grow as offerings expand
Experience highlights.
For clients
- Links that look and feel like Painted Desires, not a generic host.
- Simple, distraction-free viewing on desktop and mobile.
- Language and layout that respect the personal nature of the work.
- Clear steps from viewing to choosing to receiving final pieces.
For the studio
- One place to manage sessions, galleries, and deliveries.
- Less time fighting with mismatched services and links.
- A calmer, more controlled experience around sensitive work.
- A site and system that can be extended over time.
Under the hood.
The stack is modern but deliberately simple, so the site is fast, stable, and ready for future integration with EmberPDA and other tools as the studio grows.
Stack
- Next.js + React
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
- Supabase (auth & data)
Infrastructure
- Cloud-hosted deployment
- Optimized for image-heavy content
- Ready for object storage integrations (e.g., R2)
Future Ember hooks
- Endpoints suited for notifications and updates
- Room for assistant-driven client messaging later on
- Data model aligned with EmberPDA's structure
Want a similar setup for your studio?
If you run a studio or small creative business and need something more tailored than a template, we can help design and build a system around how you actually work.