Work Services Demos Studio Contact hello@theweb.studio Text (347) 313-8867
Experiences built around your brand.
Design.Engineering.Fabrication.
Work

Selected works.

All work →
What we make

Four strands, one thread.

All services →

Every project runs the same thread: it starts with strategy and ends in reality.

S

Strategy

Where every project starts.

Every business comes to us with something different: a launch, a slow season, an idea, a problem. We take the time to understand what you sell, who it's for, and what's already working, then shape the plan together. Sometimes that needs one strand below. Sometimes all four.

P

Production

Everything that gets made.

Visual work: photography, video and motion in your brand's own language. Physical work: 3D-printed signage, displays and merch with NFC tags (a chip a customer taps with their phone) set inside them.

D

Discovery

How people find you.

Everything that makes you findable: your website, your search results, your listings, and the pieces that travel on their own, like branded stickers people drop into their stories and texts. Whether someone is searching for you or hasn't heard of you yet, you show up.

R

Reality

Where they end up.

Spatial experiences: WebAR (a camera experience opened from a link, no app to download), interactive installations, and full 3D capture of a room or an object. All of it runs on the phone your customer already carries.

Design, engineering, and fabrication under one roof. No subcontractors, no handoffs.

50M+ views on our AR work 500M+ views on our stickers 10+ years doing this
About the studio →
Start a project
Tell us what
you’re working on.
Email hello@theweb.studio
Text or call (347) 313-8867
Studio Queens, NYC
Remote friendly
Inquiry form

Work
What we’ve made.

Each project below shows what we built, what it was for, and what it did once it was out in the world.

Services
What we do, and what it costs.

Three domains, with a price on every piece of work inside them. Read the tiers, pick the row that fits, and book a call. If nothing fits, the call is still free.

Start here

What are you trying to fix?

“People walk past and never come in.”
A window piece, a sign, or a camera experience that gives someone a reason to stop, look, and take a photo of it.
Physical, Spatial →
“My website is years out of date.”
We improve the site you already run instead of rebuilding it. Your platform, your domain and your search rankings stay where they are.
Digital Enhancement →
“I never have anything to post.”
A season of photography, video and campaign images from one round of direction, in one visual language.
Visual →
“People come once and forget us.”
Something they keep or share that points back to you: a tap-to-open object on their keys, or a sticker set they put on their own posts.
Physical, Visual →
“I am running this out of a spreadsheet.”
Dashboards and automations built around the way you already work, without hiring an engineering team to maintain them.
Custom software →
“We need something better to give clients.”
Your logo, or the building itself, 3D printed with an NFC chip set inside. It sits on a desk rather than in a drawer, and a tap opens your site, a project page, or wherever you point it. Ordered in runs for closings, completions and year-end.
Physical →
“The building is being renovated and there is no record of it.”
We scan it first. A full 3D record of the structure as it stands, dated and measurable, that you can walk through in a browser years later. Useful before a renovation, during a build, and at a facade inspection.
Spatial →
“We need the thing people line up for at the event.”
A photo booth on the guests' own phones. Tap a sign, take the photo, leave with a card or a strip that carries your name and your partners, shared from the phone before they reach the bar.
Visual, Digital →
“We need something for the district that is not another street fair.”
A route people actually walk. We have run a weekend-long hunt across six businesses, with pieces to find, phones to tap and a reason to enter every door on the list. Built for a BID, a chamber or a council office.
All three →
What we make

Three domains, one studio.

In practice

What people actually use it for.

Animated sticker sets
Your customers find your stickers inside Instagram, TikTok and iMessage and put them on their own posts and videos. Your name rides along with their content, to their followers, without a media buy.
Visual →
3D product scanning
We digitize your products so a customer can spin them in 3D on your own site. They get a proper look before buying instead of guessing from two photos.
Spatial →
Smart objects
Any printed piece with a chip inside, doing whatever you point it at. A counter piece that opens your menu. A logo keychain that opens a page you own. Signage, packaging, merch, display models. Where it points changes without reprinting a thing.
Physical →
Objects with something behind them
The tap is the door, and we build what is on the other side. A piece that starts an AR game in your shop. One that logs stock into a system built for how you count it. One that checks a guest in. The object stays simple; the work sits behind it.
Physical, Spatial →
Generated campaign content
A season of product shots, ads and short video from one round of direction. Enough to post consistently without booking a shoot every month.
Visual →
Camera experiences in your space
Point a phone at your window, your packaging or a wall and something appears on screen. It opens from a link or a tap, with no app to download, and it is the part people record.
Spatial →

Every project opens with a strategy session: what is worth building, in what order, and what to leave alone. Pricing for each domain is below.

Pricing

Standard, Brand, Custom.

The work is the same at every tier. Standard is a fixed price with a fast turnaround, for posting on your own channels. Brand covers a larger scope, adds revision rounds, and includes the rights to run it as paid advertising. Custom gets quoted per project. You see the number before anything starts, and it does not move after. If nothing on this page fits what you have in mind, the first call is still free.

Studio rates. The prices below are our rates for brands, venues and events. Running a local or independent business? Ask for a custom quote: we scope the same work to fit your size and budget.

05 / Bespoke

Custom.

Scoped per project

For the idea that doesn’t fit a package.

A scavenger hunt that runs across a whole neighborhood. An internal tool your staff will actually open. A 3D archive of a family business before it changes hands. An install in a storefront window that people stop for. A merch drop where no two pieces match. Something nobody has asked us for yet.

Sketch it on a napkin. We will scope it, prototype it, and ship it, and you will know the number before we start.

Every project: a first call, a written scope, payments split across milestones, and full ownership when we hand it over.

Signing bonus

Every signed project comes with a 3D-printed version of your logo with an NFC tag inside it. A customer taps it with their phone and lands wherever you point it: your site, your booking page, your menu. It ships in week one, so you have something on the counter before the rest is finished.

Innovation

When it all runs together.

Case study

The Great Ganja Hunt

Trends LIC · 4/20 weekend

Strategy, 3D printing and AR in one weekend, across six Long Island City shops.

One strategy session became a neighbourhood-wide hunt for Trends, the first Black-owned dispensary in LIC. Nine NFC-embedded letter pieces designed and printed in-house, hidden across six local businesses. Teams solved clues, tapped each piece with their phone, and every stop sent new customers through a neighbour’s door on the busiest weekend of the year. It ran a second year, with seven partners.

This is what the three domains look like pointed at one idea: something to hold, something to watch, something to walk into.

Read the case study →

Process

How a project runs.

Day 1
Discover

One call, thirty to forty five minutes. We look at your site, your social, and what you are actually trying to fix. No form to fill out first. You talk, we take notes.

↳ FREE · 30 MIN
Days 2–3
Plan

You get one page: what we are building, what you need to send us, how long it takes, and what it costs. Itemized, with nothing left open to interpretation.

↳ 50% DEPOSIT TO START
Weeks 1–4
Ship

We build on top of what you already have. One check-in partway through and one round of changes are already included. Your NFC logo arrives in week one.

↳ 1 – 4 WEEKS
Launch day
Handoff

Live links, the source files, and a short walkthrough so your team can run it. You keep your platform, your search rankings, and your domain. Nothing is locked to us. The remaining half is due at launch.

↳ HANDOFF + 50% BALANCE
FAQ

Common questions, plain answers.

Demos
Try it on your own phone.

Seven things we built, running live. Open any of them in your phone browser. Nothing to download, no sign-up, no app store.

Working demos

Go on, try one.

Camera + generative AI

Hair Studio

Take a photo of yourself and change the cut or the colour. Your face, your lighting, your angle, with only the hair redrawn.

What it shows: a try-before-you-buy tool a salon or barber can put on their own site.

Open it → Photo booth

Rookie Card Booth

Step up, take a selfie, and land on a 1987-style baseball card with your name and number on it.

What it shows: the branded photo moment people line up for at an event, and post afterwards.

Open it → Photo strip

Match Booth

Tap once. Three shots on a countdown with pose cues, dropped into a matchbox frame with the partners at the base. Nothing leaves your phone.

What it shows: the classic booth strip, run on a guest's own phone with no attendant and no server.

Open it → Photo booth, re-skinnable

Card Booth

The Rookie Card flow with the art, the copy and the scene as settings. Shown here as a tennis card for a night session in Flushing Meadows.

What it shows: the same booth dressed for a new event in an afternoon, with a link that carries the whole skin.

Open it → Augmented reality

World AR

A couch lands on the floor in front of you and stays there. Walk around it, crouch, back off: it holds its place. Drag to move it, pinch to scale, twist to rotate.

What it shows: a product, a sculpture or a sign a customer can place in their own space before buying. Runs on our own tracking, with nothing to print and nothing to scan.

Open it → Our production tools

Gen Labs

The suite we use in-house to make client content: image and video generation, product swaps, social kits, all in one place.

What it shows: how the content on your feed actually gets made. Opens straight into the lab. Password is Generation.

Open it → Live object detection

Detect

Point the camera at something and it gets named. Watch, thumbs up, drink, or anything at all.

What it shows: a scavenger hunt that knows when someone found the right thing, or a display that reacts to what a customer picks up.

Open it →

Every one of these runs in a normal phone browser. That is the point: a customer taps a link, a sign, or an NFC chip and it opens, with nothing standing in the way.

Studio
All of it made here.

Signs and objects, photography and video, and WebAR camera experiences. Every part of it made under one roof, so nothing gets handed off and nothing gets lost.

Whereabouts
Queens, NYC
Remote and on-site
across the five boroughs.
Reach us
hello@theweb.studio
Weekdays, same-day reply.

We work with the people who own the places and the people who build them. Restaurants, studios, salons, gyms, dispensaries and shops. General contractors, developers and property owners. Law, accounting and professional firms. Business improvement districts and council offices. Signage, photography, video, websites, 3D scanning, custom tools. Priced so it is worth doing more than once.

We treat tomorrow's tech like a public good. A conversation, a clear quote, and a thing that ships. The work is held to the same standard on every project that comes through.

AR
50M+
WebAR & filter views
MOTION
500M+
GIPHY sticker views
3D PRINT
500+
NFC objects shipped
SHIPPING
10+ yrs
In creative tech

How we work.

Operating Principles
01 / Lean studio + network

One practice, deep bench.

A tight core with a network of trusted collaborators (motion, fabrication, photography, code, engineering) brought in per project. Direct line to the people doing the work.

02 / Transparent quotes

No mystery line items.

Quotes are itemized in plain language. Tip jar, not a retainer. We tell you when something is overkill for your need.

03 / Local first

Built where we live.

Queens-rooted. Designed, printed, and shot in-house. We'd rather be useful to a block in our neighborhood than impressive in a slide deck.

Method

S.P.D.R.

Strategic Prototyping, Design, Research.

Every engagement runs on it. Build the first version fast so it has something to react to. Design around what the prototype teaches us, not what the brief guessed. Treat the research as the work, not the pre-brief formality. It’s how we deliver global-studio craft on small-studio budgets and timelines.

Open work, public goods.

Things we give away

Public utilities, open code, and detailed case studies, published in full. The practice gets better when more people can build on top of it, so we put the work where anyone can read it.

Contact
Tell us what you’re after.

One call, thirty minutes, no form to fill out first. We will tell you what it takes and what it costs, or tell you we are not the right fit.

Email hello@theweb.studio
Text or call (347) 313-8867
Text us a date and a venue to set up the call.
Studio Queens, NYC
Remote friendly
Coverage Five boroughs.
Remote anywhere.
Elsewhere @the_web.studio / ig
theweb.studio
Inquiry form

← All journal
Journal / WebARMarch 2026

Why WebAR is the right shape of AR for an owner-run business.

Native AR was built for app stores. SMBs don't need an app. They need their filter to open from a QR code, an NFC tap, or a Story link. We default to WebAR for local clients, and the reasoning is below.

The friction nobody mentions in the pitch deck

Native AR (the kind that lives inside an app) assumes the user has already downloaded something. That's a fair assumption for Pokémon GO. It is not a fair assumption for a Queens dispensary running a 4/20 weekend activation.

Every link in the chain "see ad → download app → open app → find AR feature → tap it" cuts the funnel by half. Three links in, you've lost 87% of the audience. You have also paid for an app build that gets quietly retired once the campaign ends.

WebAR sidesteps this entirely. A QR code, NFC tap, or Story link opens the filter inside the browser the user already has open. No install, no permissions waltz, no app icon they'll never tap again.

What WebAR can't do (and when it matters)

It is not free. WebAR has real limitations:

  • Heavy 3D scenes: anything past ~30MB of geometry/textures starts choking older phones
  • Persistent state across sessions: leaderboards, progress, saved characters all need a backend
  • Some platform-specific lens features: Snap Lens Studio still has the deepest face-tracking effects, for example

For most owner-run briefs, none of these limits actually bind. The filter has to look good, work first try, and feel branded. WebAR clears that bar with room to spare.

What we use, and why

8th Wall for image-target and SLAM-tracked AR. The workhorse for storefront-window activations and product packaging that comes alive when scanned. Niantic Studio when we need VPS (Visual Positioning System) so the AR locks to a real-world place. See the Highline pigeon dressed in Yankees fitted. Snap Lens Studio for face filters that have to live inside Snapchat or Instagram for distribution reasons.

We pick per project. The brief tells us the entry point (QR, NFC tap, link share) and the entry point picks the platform.

The honest pricing

A single-scene WebAR experience, branded and tested across iOS and Android, starts at $3,500 and rises with the number of scenes and whether you bring assets or we build them. A multi-scene scavenger hunt with logic and unlock states costs more and takes longer. A native iOS build of the same brief takes several times as long before anyone can open it.

The math isn't subtle. For most local clients, WebAR is the only AR that makes sense.

Related work
Project · AR · Immersive AR & Immersive Open → Journal · NFC · QR NFC and QR: which one and when. Read →

Working on something in this space?

Discovery call is free, 30 minutes, no script. We’ll tell you whether it’s a fit and what it would take to ship.

Start a thread →