About
Most websites are assembled. Ours are written, line by line, from scratch.
Fretwork is a small studio that builds websites the way a cabinetmaker builds furniture - by hand, to measure, without shortcuts. Every line of code is deliberate. Every interaction is considered. We work with clients who care about the difference.
We believe the web is a craft. Not a template to fill. Not a theme to configure.
Our Services
- Custom Web Design - Bespoke websites designed to measure, without shortcuts. No templates. No themes.
- Custom Web Development - Hand-coded websites built in the browser. Real working software at every review - never static mockups.
- Brand Identity Design - Wordmark, typography, and visual identity systems built in coordination with your digital presence.
- E-commerce Development - Custom Shopify Storefront API integrations and bespoke commerce experiences beyond Liquid templates.
Our Process
- Listen - We start without assumptions. Two or three conversations to understand what you're actually trying to do, not what you think you need built.
- Propose - A written brief - no decks, no wireframes yet. Plain language describing the approach, the scope, and why we've made each decision.
- Build - Code first. We write in the browser, not in a design tool. You see real working software at every review, never static mockups.
- Refine - Two rounds of revisions, properly considered. We'd rather spend a day getting something exactly right than ship something nearly right.
- Hand over - Full ownership. Clean code, documented where needed, deployed to infrastructure you control. We don't lock anyone in.
Selected Work
Corban Estate
A scroll-driven editorial archive tracing the Corban family - from Assid Abraham Corban's emigration from the mountain village of Shweir, Lebanon in 1891, to the century of winemaking that followed on a 10-acre plot in Henderson, West Auckland. Designed and built end-to-end by Fretwork Studio.
The brief was simple to say and hard to do: make a hundred years of history feel urgent. Not preserved behind glass - alive. Fretwork Studio built everything from scratch: the concept, the narrative structure, the interactions, and every line of code.
Assid Abraham Corban left Shweir, a village on the slopes of Mount Lebanon, in 1891. He passed through Australia, made it to Henderson in West Auckland, and in 1902 bought ten acres above the Ō Panuku stream. He planted vines, built a cellar by hand, and named the place Mt Lebanon Vineyards after home. That cellar is still standing - Henderson's oldest surviving industrial building. The family won medals at the Auckland Exhibition, held on through prohibition and the Depression, and eventually built what became New Zealand's largest wine producer. The Estate is now a Category 1 Historic Place.
The platform opens in scroll-lock. A 3D globe - rendered in WebGL via MapLibre - carries the viewer from the Lebanese mountains, across the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, through Melbourne and Wellington, and down onto the Henderson ridge where Assid planted his first vines. Every camera angle is set by hand: pitch, bearing, zoom, each one chosen for what it needs to feel like at that moment. When the journey ends, the scroll unlocks. Act 2 is a long-form editorial - decade by decade, from the first gold medals in 1910 through to the Historic Place listing - with a sticky panel that deals out archival images as the reader moves down the page.
During Act 1, the browser's scroll is intercepted completely. Wheel events and touch deltas feed into a normalised progress value, run through a custom easing curve, and applied straight to the camera. The scroll becomes a timeline. To stop tiles popping on first load, a hidden map instance quietly pre-caches every waypoint coordinate before anything is shown to the viewer. At the transition to Act 2, the WebGL context is torn down properly - listeners removed, GPU buffers cleared - before the editorial takes over. No CMS. No framework. One hand-written file.
Editorial · Archive · Web - 2024
Lume Photo Editor
A free, browser-based professional photo editing workspace with zero server dependencies and absolute client privacy. Every pixel operation runs locally - no uploads, no accounts, no recurring costs. Designed and built end-to-end by Fretwork Studio.
The premise was deliberately contrary. Most software companies want your data, your account, your recurring payment. Lume wants none of it. Fretwork Studio designed and built the whole thing - product thinking, application architecture, deployment, and the public site.
Lume is a proper editing workspace. The tone panel runs from exposure and contrast through to whites and blacks. Colour has white balance, saturation and vibrance as separate controls, and three-way grading wheels for shadows, midtones, and highlights independently. There is a dehaze module for backlit shots, and a split-canvas that shows before and after side by side with a draggable divider.
The masking engine has four modes: a brush with adjustable radius and feathering; a lasso for freehand selections with soft edges; a colour-range picker that works in HSL space with threshold and falloff controls; and linear and radial gradient masks. Everything is non-destructive, and masks can be combined. Lume can connect to three different inference paths for AI relighting - local Ollama models running completely offline, Groq for fast cloud processing on the user's own API token, or OpenRouter.
The app runs on Vite and React. The Tauri desktop layer is kept separate from the core so the same codebase compiles to both a browser app and a native desktop executable without maintaining two codebases. An embedded EXIF reader surfaces shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and camera model on import. A global command palette gets you to any control in the app without lifting your hands off the keyboard.
Product · App · React - 2025
Common Questions
How long does a custom website project take?
Most projects run four to ten weeks from brief to handover, depending on scope. A brand-plus-website engagement sits toward the longer end; a focused single-purpose site can move faster. Two properly considered rounds of revisions are built into every project - we don't rush.
How much does a custom website cost in New Zealand?
Fretwork Studio projects typically start from around $8,000 NZD for a focused custom website, and run to $20,000 NZD or more for larger scopes including brand identity, e-commerce, or interactive web experiences. We provide a plain-language written brief and fixed scope before any work begins - no surprise invoices.
What is the difference between a custom-coded website and a page builder?
Page builders like Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress with Elementor assemble websites from pre-built components and templates. A custom-coded website is written from scratch - every interaction, layout, and behaviour is deliberately designed for that specific project. Custom code is faster to load, more reliable, fully owned by the client, and not constrained by what a platform allows or decides to change.
What happens after my website is handed over?
At handover you receive full ownership of the codebase - clean, documented where needed, and deployed to infrastructure you control. There is no ongoing licence fee, no platform lock-in, and no dependency on Fretwork Studio to make changes. You own it outright.
Does Fretwork Studio work with clients outside Auckland?
Yes. Fretwork Studio is based in Auckland, New Zealand, but works with clients across New Zealand and internationally. All project stages work equally well remotely.
Contact
Let's make something real. Get in touch to start a conversation about your project.
Based in Auckland, New Zealand. Working with clients locally and internationally.
hello@fretworkstudio.com
