Hook & Eye — Questions & To Do

Two parts. The first is a list of things I need a read on from you before I can keep moving. You do not need to answer them in advance — they are the agenda for our review session. If you want to answer any of them over text before then, that is useful; if you would rather walk through them live, also fine.

The second is a To Do section: items I am drafting in your absence so the build does not stall. None of these are committed; they all need your read before they go live. I am surfacing them here so you know what is in flight.

I have grouped the questions by urgency. The first group blocks work; the second shapes work; the third can wait. Items that have been resolved since the original draft are moved to the bottom of the page in a "Resolved" section so the active list stays focused.

Blocking — I need answers to keep moving

1. Design direction. Which of the four directions in the options slate (A — graphic-novel primary, B — graphic-novel accent, C — atelier / maker-craft, D — theater program) do we build toward? A hybrid is fine; a fifth direction is fine. Provisional commitment is also fine — we can ratify "try A for a week" and revisit.

   Status as of 2026-04-29: Direction A (graphic-novel primary) is the working build — the grounded mockup you'll see is built in that register. This is a working assumption, not your decision yet. If you want to pivot or hybridize, we'll still owe builds for the directions you might prefer; the longer we go on the working assumption, the more rework if it changes. Worth ratifying or redirecting on Friday.

2. Domain-transfer green-light. Do you want to proceed with the Wix → Porkbun → Cloudflare path described in the domain-transfer document? If yes, when is a good two-week window to start (the transfer itself is mostly waiting, but there are a few active moments where we should not be traveling or offline).

Shaping — these change the build, not the start

3. Portfolio + photography + organization (and an AI-direction angle).

   This is a folded item that bundles four related questions: (a) which projects to feature, (b) what photos we have for each, (c) how the photo library should be organized going forward, and (d) whether you want sketches in the mix. Plus a watch-item about Wix asset durability.

   (a) The starter set, not the answer. For Friday, we curated a small set so you'd have something to react to: Masquerade and the LEGO/Wicked Premiere project, with a few photos each. This is a starter pulled from what's available on Wix — almost certainly not the strongest material you have. We need your call on the full portfolio list.

   (b) Photography backlog vs. session. The pairing question for each portfolio piece is: which projects do you want featured, AND what photos do you have for each? The site gets much stronger with good photography. Do you have a backlog we can pull from, or should we plan a short photo session for the Who-We-Are page, Process page, and Work case studies? A two-hour session with a local photographer is usually enough for the whole site and is the single biggest lift we can make.

   (c) The organization recommendation — and the actual schema. While building the catalogue, I noticed your portfolio could benefit from a one-time organization pass — sorting raw photo dumps by project, by phase (concept / build / finished), and by usage tag (web / pitch / social / print). Here is the schema I'd propose, so you can see it instead of just hearing me describe it:

   Schema — three-axis tagging

   Every photo gets located on three axes: Project (which commission), Phase (where in the process), and Usage (where it's most useful). Filename + folder structure encodes all three so they're sortable.

   Project	Phase	Usage	File (suggested name)	Notes
   Masquerade	Concept	Pitch deck	masquerade_concept_001.jpg	Initial sketch / mood reference
   Masquerade	Build	Web (process)	masquerade_build_001.jpg	Pinning / draping at the form
   Masquerade	Finished	Web (portfolio)	masquerade_final_001.jpg	Hero shot, full garment
   Masquerade	Finished	Social media	masquerade_final_002.jpg	Detail shot, bodice / closeup
   LEGO / Wicked Premiere	Build	Web (portfolio)	wicked_build_001.jpg	Bench shot, foam-core layup
   LEGO / Wicked Premiere	Finished	Web (portfolio)	wicked_final_001.jpg	On-talent at premiere
   (your next project)	...	...	...	...

   And a folder-structure version, since that's how the photos will actually live on your drive:

   portfolio_archive/ ├── masquerade/ │ ├── 01_concept/ │ │ ├── masquerade_concept_001.jpg │ │ └── masquerade_concept_002.jpg │ ├── 02_build/ │ │ └── masquerade_build_001.jpg │ └── 03_finished/ │ ├── masquerade_final_001.jpg │ └── masquerade_final_002.jpg ├── lego_wicked_premiere/ │ ├── 01_concept/ │ ├── 02_build/ │ └── 03_finished/ └── (your next project)/

   This is a starting point — we'll adjust the projects, the phase categories, and the usage tags to fit how you actually run the work. The point is that any photo can be located by these three answers, which makes adding a new project a drop-in operation rather than a redesign.

   (d) The AI-direction angle — why this organization pass is high-leverage now. If you'd like to go in an AI direction, this organization pass is high-impact infrastructure. Once your portfolio is structured this way, AI tools (including me) can very quickly and effectively publish new portfolio additions and iterate on design — adding a new project becomes a matter of dropping the new photos into the schema, not a new build cycle. Useful for new portfolio additions and for iterating on design without bottlenecking on me. The reason to do it now, before launch, is that the schema is much easier to set up clean than to retrofit later.

   (e) Project sketches. For each portfolio piece, do you have early-stage sketches or design drawings we could include? It would unlock a much stronger "establishing → close-up → finished" three-frame layout for each portfolio detail page (Masquerade is built that way as a demo). If you have them in any form (paper, scans, phone photos of paper), we can work with whatever you've got. They'd live in the 01_concept/ phase folder under the schema above.

   (f) Wix-asset durability — heads up, watch-item. Anything currently only on your Wix site (photos, copy, files) needs to be exported before the domain transfer cuts your access. This isn't an action item for you yet — it's a watch-item I'm flagging so we don't lose anything. Once we're ready to start the domain transfer (item 2 above), I'll put together a checklist and we'll do the export pass together. The schema-organization work and the export work are natural pairs — both are "rescue and reorganize what's currently on Wix."

   What I need from you on Friday: ~30 min walkthrough of your existing photo storage so I can understand what schema fits your reality, plus your initial portfolio list (we can ratify-and-revise as you spend time with it). And a yes/no on the AI-direction framing — does that direction interest you, or would you prefer the manual / I-build-each-page model?

4. Partner relationships — staged-at vs. built-for, and the ask letters. The partner section is built and looking good (live in the grounded mockup), and we've grouped current partners into Staged at (theaters, productions where work appeared) and Work for (commercial commissions). Two questions for you:

   • Categorization. For each partner you want featured, which category do they belong in — staged at (we worked on something performed there), built for (we made something for them as a brand or production), or some other framing you'd prefer? You may want a third bucket for film/TV credits, for instance. Your call on the buckets and the assignments.
   • The ask letters. Once you confirm the partner list and categories, I have an outreach letter draft ready — say the word and we send the asks this week. Tell me whether the letter goes from your address or mine.

5. Team page format — confirmed (built); your call to confirm or revise. We went with the "one shop paragraph + one-sentence cameos for each person" approach. Live in the grounded mockup. Confirm this is the right read, or tell me what to change.

6. Team titles + bios — pending your specifics. I've drafted placeholder cameos for everyone. Before this goes live, I need your specific instructions on how to write each person's title and bio — what each person should be called (role/title), the order they appear in, and how much voice each cameo should carry. The team should weigh in too if they want to.

7. Services cut — confirmed (built) but flagging granularity. We went with a single Services page showing five distinct areas: Specialty Fabrication, Pattern Drafting, Draping & Tailoring, Fitting Room Services, Alterations & Seamstress. This is more granular than my original "Commission & Build vs. Alterations & Tailoring" framing. Confirm this matches how you'd describe the work, or tell me which to merge, drop, or rename.

8. Calendly. Are you willing to let people book directly into your calendar for alteration drop-offs and fittings? If yes, what time blocks should be bookable (e.g., Tuesday–Thursday 10am–4pm, or whatever your actual pattern is)? If you want me to set up Calendly, I will need access to a Google Workspace calendar to connect it to.

9. Contact-page phone number. Do you want a phone number visible on the Contact page, and if so, is it the (not-really-real) Wix number or a real number you would prefer to use? We can also set up a routing layer (call-forwarding) if you want a public-facing number that is not your personal cell.

10. Analytics posture. Do you want visibility into who is visiting the site, which pages they read, what they search for? Cloudflare gives us privacy-respecting basic analytics for free; Google Analytics gives us more at the cost of more data-processing disclosures. I default to Cloudflare Analytics unless you tell me otherwise.

Later — nothing changes if these wait until session 02 or 03

11. Featured commercial partner for the Process page imagery. If we can ride along on one of your real in-flight commissions for build photography, the Process page gets ten times better. Any current project where that would be welcome?

12. Wedding silhouette selector scope. When we bring this online in phase two or three, what is the right shape of the tool — a visual picker (click the silhouette that is closest), a questionnaire (answer six questions), or both? Callie's read is the binding one; this is not a session-01 decision.

13. Shop history. You mentioned a mentor lineage and the origins of the shop on the 17th. If there is a short narrative version of that story you want on the Who-We-Are page, it would be a good addition — but the page works fine without it if you would rather keep that implicit.

14. Newsletter / email capture. Some shops in your register run an occasional newsletter (new portfolio pieces, seasonal offerings). Interested? If yes, we add a footer email-capture and plan a light Mailchimp or Buttondown setup phase-two.

Not a question — just a flag

If any of the read-back in the project-understanding brief is wrong, flag it first. Fixing my understanding is always cheaper than fixing work built on top of wrong understanding.

To Do — items I am drafting in your absence

While we work through the items above, I am drafting a few items so they are ready to land into the site instead of stalling the build. Each is collapsed below; click to expand. None of these are committed; they all need your read before going live or going out. I am surfacing them here so nothing is happening behind your back.

See you at our review session.