About
Built by people who ran the work.
Aperture started inside a studio, not a lab. We spent years delivering client projects with too many tools and too little shared context — then built the workspace we kept wishing existed.
The studio came first
Before Aperture was a product, it was a workaround. Our founders ran a small design studio and spent most of Friday afternoons reconstructing the week: which version was approved, which client said what, which project was quietly waiting on a decision nobody had recorded.
The tools available were either built for software teams or built for enterprises. Neither matched how a studio actually works — a handful of people, many clients, constant review, and a reputation that depends on nothing falling through.
So we built a room for each engagement. Milestones on top, the current round in the middle, decisions below, and one link a client could open without a login. It worked for us, then for a few studios we knew, then for enough of them that it became the product.
Today Aperture is a small team in two cities, serving studios that would rather do the work than administer it. We are still guided by the same Friday-afternoon question: what would make this project easier to pick up on Monday?
2019
First internal version
2
Cities, one team
40+
Studios on the workspace
1
Room per engagement
Principles
What we optimise for
Four commitments that shape every decision, from the permission model to the smallest label in the interface.
Craft over ceremony
Every feature must earn its place in the daily workflow. If it adds steps without adding clarity, it does not ship.
Clarity is a feature
A workspace should answer 'where are we on this?' in a glance — for the team and for the client asking it.
Opinions, written down
We take a position on how client work should run, document it, and stay open to being wrong in public.
Calm by default
Client work is stressful enough. The tool should lower the temperature, not add another dashboard to check.
Timeline
How we got here
2019
The Friday prototype
A shared workspace built for one studio's own engagements, replacing a folder tree and a very long email thread.
2021
First external studios
Five studios adopt the workspace. The first permission model and client view are written for people who are not us.
2023
Aperture becomes a product
The workaround gets a name, a billing page, and a proper onboarding flow. Services launch alongside it.
2025
Today
A small team across two cities, supporting studios of every size with the same room-per-engagement idea we started with.
Team
A small team, on purpose
Everyone here has run client work. That is not a slogan — it is the hiring filter.
Mira Halden
Co-founder, product
Former studio producer who spent a decade reconstructing status from four tools. Designs the workspace around that memory.
Tomas Reyes
Co-founder, engineering
Built the first version over two winters. Still writes the permission model and still answers support email on Mondays.
Sable Okafor-Meyer
Head of services
Runs every implementation and training engagement. Believes most process problems are actually visibility problems.
Ilya Vermeer
Design
Responsible for the calm parts: typography, hierarchy, and the screens clients see when they open a link.
Noor Faraj
Customer success
The name most studios recognise from their inbox. Keeps the office hours, reads the feedback, files the sharp edges.
Ellis Tran
Engineering
Works on versions, exports, and the migration tools that move a studio's history without losing the thread.
Bring your next project into focus.
Open a workspace, invite your client, and run the whole engagement in one place.