Studio Dawn is a creative growth studio based in Auckland, New Zealand. We work as creative director, brand strategist and community builder in one, across brand strategy, brand positioning, creative direction and campaign strategy for businesses, and creative direction and mentoring for creatives.
We call ourselves a creative growth studio. Like a creative agency, we lead brand strategy, brand identity and campaigns end to end. Unlike a large agency, you work directly with one senior creative director, not a rotating account team.
Studio Dawn is led by Kimberley Torrie, Creative Director, brand strategist and community builder with more than fourteen years across branding, advertising, design and strategy. Previously at FCB Auckland and Saatchi & Saatchi London, on brands including Air New Zealand, Whittaker's, Sharesies, Vodafone and ANZ.
Studio Dawn is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and has also worked from Bali, London and Byron Bay. Clients have been just as spread out, based in Wellington, Tokyo, London, Sydney and beyond. New Zealand is home, but the growth is NZ to the world, with Studio Dawn actively building relationships across Australia, Asia, the UK and Europe. Distance has never been the thing that gets in the way of good work.
A creative agency runs projects for you, backed by a team. A fractional creative director works inside your business part-time, as senior creative leadership you're not ready to hire full-time. Studio Dawn offers both: full creative-agency-style projects, and fractional creative direction from one to two days a week.
A brand strategist defines the foundation everything else gets built on. That means your positioning, your audience, your messaging and the space you own in the market, answering who you are, who you're for, and why anyone should choose you, before a single visual gets designed.
A one-off brand identity, campaign or launch usually suits a project-based creative agency engagement. Ongoing creative decisions, made well every week rather than once, usually suit fractional creative direction. Plenty of Studio Dawn clients start with one and move to the other as they grow.
Studio Dawn thrives in ambiguity, helping define what you actually need before you can quite name it yourself, then bringing that to life visually and tonally. That spans brand strategy and brand positioning, brand identity and visual identity systems, campaign strategy and design, development, production and social media, product launch strategy, repositioning, and new venture strategy, alongside fractional creative direction. Every project is scoped individually, because no two briefs are the same.
Yes. Early-stage and growth-stage businesses across New Zealand and Australia are a big part of our work, from a first brand identity through to a full repositioning. We also offer growth value arrangements (revenue share, royalties, equity) for the right early-stage fit.
It depends on scope. Every project is priced individually so you know exactly what you're paying for: a project fee, a monthly retainer for fractional creative direction, or a growth value arrangement for early-stage businesses. Get in touch and we'll work out what fits.
Even the best creatives need a sounding board. We can't do our best work in a vacuum, we need different brains, different experience and different viewpoints on the brief in front of us. That sounding board might be a few hours in a workshop, or ongoing support over months. A lot of people went freelance or started their own studio for the freedom, and later find they need the rigour of a senior creative director to sharpen the thinking back up.
It depends what you need. A creative direction agency gives you a team and a process. A freelance creative director gives you speed and a direct relationship, working alone. Studio Dawn sits between the two: one senior creative director, backed by fourteen-plus years of agency-level thinking, working directly with you or your client.
Yes, this is a core part of what we do. Freelancers, studio founders and independent creative directors come to us for a senior creative perspective on their own work or their client projects, without hiring a full agency.
Creative coaching sharpens the work itself: the ideas, the craft, the pitch. Mentoring and career coaching for creatives go wider, into positioning, confidence and the next career move. Business coaching for creatives covers the commercial side: pricing, clients, the business model. Studio Dawn works across all three, because they're rarely separate problems.
It's for creatives at a pivot point. That might be a career change, coming back into the industry after time away, sharpening a portfolio, building creative confidence, working out how to ask for a pay rise or have a difficult conversation, figuring out how you actually want to work (pricing, going fractional, freelancing), or moving countries. Sometimes it's simpler than any of that: just an external creative brain, or someone who'll properly listen.
Kimberley's background includes yoga and community building, so pranayama (yogic breathwork) is sometimes lightly woven in, to help calm, ground and regulate the nervous system before a big decision or a hard conversation. It's there if it's useful to you, never the main event.
No. Some of our most meaningful work is one-on-one with individual creatives. We offer hourly, daily and project-based creative direction, plus skill exchange for the right fit.
Yes. Creative direction for hire at Studio Dawn is available by the hour, the day or the project, as well as ongoing, part-time fractional arrangements. Tell us what you need and we'll scope the right shape.
It depends on the project. Every engagement is scoped individually: a project fee, a monthly retainer, or growth value (revenue share, royalties, equity) for the right fit. The best starting point is a conversation.
You don't need to figure that out first, that's what the first conversation is for. Tell us where you're at and we'll work out the right way to work together.
Book a call at cal.com/studiodawn or email hello@studiodawn.org. We read every message and reply within one to two business days.