questions
the things people ask first.
The questions that come up before a commission starts, answered without the hedging. If something here is missing, ask it directly.
Who owns the website or software when the work is finished?
You do, outright. The repository, the design files and the accounts the work runs on are handed over at the end of the engagement. There is no licence to renew, no per-seat fee, and nothing that stops working if we never speak again. This is the whole difference between commissioning something and renting it.
What happens to our site if we stop working with you?
It keeps running. Because the handover includes the code and the infrastructure accounts, another engineer can pick the project up without needing anything from us. Work that only survives while its author is still being paid is a liability rather than an asset, so it is built not to be that.
What kind of work is this actually for?
Things that do not exist yet. Interactive environments, real time 3D, custom platforms, tools built around one company's particular way of operating, archives meant to hold a career. The clients who come here have already worked out that what they want is not sitting in a template, which is usually why they arrive with a problem rather than a page count.
What does a commission cost?
There is no rate card. Engagements are scoped individually and priced against what the thing has to do, which is the only honest way to price work that has not been specified yet. These are senior engagements rather than volume production, and the budget tends to reflect that. Describing the problem is enough to establish quickly whether the ambition and the budget are in the same range.
How long does a project take?
It depends entirely on scope, and anyone quoting a duration before understanding the problem is guessing. What is fixed is the shape: the scope gets agreed before building starts, and the handover is part of the engagement rather than an afterthought negotiated at the end.
Do you work with artists?
Yes, and it is some of the most interesting work the studio takes. Digital homes, archives, release environments and performance interfaces, for artists whose work deserves more than a grid of thumbnails on a rented platform. Everyone here is an artist as well as a developer, so the visual direction is not something subcontracted out and fitted back in.
What is the difference between a studio and an agency?
Scale and who touches the work. A large agency wins the account with senior people and staffs it with whoever is free, and design and engineering are separate departments negotiating through a document. There are three of us and all three are both artists and developers, so the people who pitch are the people who build and nothing is lost in a handoff. The trade is capacity: a project that genuinely needs forty people belongs somewhere else.
Do you host the site as well?
Two ways, and the first is the one most studios do not offer. We will set the whole thing up on your own server, so the code, the machine and the accounts are all yours and there is no middle man in the stack. If you would rather not run infrastructure, it can live on ours instead, and we will take on hosting for something we did not build. Hosting with us is not a lock in either: the accounts stay in your name and moving the site means telling us and taking it. And when something breaks you get the person who runs the server rather than a ticket queue, because there are three of us and one of them set it up.
Do you work remotely or on site?
Remotely by default, which is why the client's location matters far less than it used to. technosovereign is based in New York, so meeting in person anywhere across the five counties is straightforward when a project genuinely calls for it.
What do you build with?
Whatever the problem actually needs, chosen for how long it will have to be maintained rather than for what is current. Real time 3D and interactive work runs on the open web so nobody has to install anything. Elsewhere the bias is toward the boring, well documented option, because the person maintaining the code in five years is usually not the person who wrote it.
How does an engagement start?
With a description of the problem rather than a specification. Specifications tend to arrive with the answer already decided, and the answer is usually the part worth questioning. Send the shape of what you are trying to do and the reply will be honest about whether this is the right place for it.
Still deciding
More on the studio is on the about page, there are guides on commissioning custom work, and the four commissions are listed on the commissions page.
use it. commission it. back it.