FORMA: Studio OS for Creative Teams

Most studios run on four tools that don't talk to each other: a task board, a file-sharing link, an email thread with the client and a spreadsheet for hours. Feedback is where it hurts most.

Notes arrive as screenshots with red circles, vague requests like “the thing at the top” and replies on the wrong version. The approval itself gets buried in an email that someone has to dig up again three months later.

Pins are stored as fractions of the artwork (0 to 1), so they stay accurate at any zoom level and on any screen. Each pin is anchored by its square corner, can be dragged by its author, and is linked both ways with the thread list: hover a pin to highlight its thread, click a thread to scroll the canvas to its pin.

Versions can be compared side by side with each version's pins, with a swipe slider, or as an opacity overlay. The seeded designs are drawn in code, so v1 → v2 shows the actual feedback applied. Uploaded files are stored in IndexedDB, because a high-resolution export won't fit in localStorage.

Each proof moves through a clear state machine: draft → submitted → in review → changes requested ↺ → approved. When a client opens a submitted proof in their portal, it moves into review and the studio is notified. Requesting revisions bundles all open comments into one round.

Rounds are counted and shown as R1, R2 and so on, and every transition is logged with who, when, which version and an optional note. Months later, “who approved this?” takes one click to answer.

Project health compares overdue work, budget burn against delivered work and schedule elapsed, and always says why. Workload spreads each task's remaining hours across its window over the next 14 days and compares it to each person's capacity. Dependencies are checked for cycles, and deadlines are calculated live, so they're never stale.

Four roles (owner, admin, member and guest) map to capabilities, with the client as a fifth audience. A persona switcher lets you watch the app change: as a guest, Reports disappear and you can only edit your own tasks. And the voice sounds like a good studio producer: “Can't finish yet: waiting on ‘Route map illustration’”, not “Dependency constraint violated”.

Each client gets a portal styled in their own brand. They see progress, proofs and updates, approve or request revisions in a couple of clicks, and never see the studio's internal threads. FORMA stays quietly in the footer: “Powered by FORMA.”