Taking creative hiring from first search to booking

Atlas is a platform for finding and booking creative freelancers in the UK: actors, dancers, photographers, videographers, content creators, security and more. Casting directors, producers, brands and agencies describe who they need, and Atlas returns a ranked shortlist.

Most platforms hirers use today work like job boards. Freelancers pay to apply, hirers sift a wall of results, and one booking can still mean agency PDFs, availability emails and a spreadsheet rebuilt by hand. Atlas had to replace that whole chain with one product.

This was not a brochure site. Atlas needed a position that stood apart from established players, a public website to explain it, and a working app behind it: accounts, profiles, search, filters, shortlists, messaging, projects, a jobs board and bookings.

Every step had to feel simple, because hirers are often working to tight shoot dates. And the website had to show the product honestly, without borrowed logos, invented reviews or numbers the product could not yet support.

A competitor audit showed the main casting and freelance platforms are built around posting and applying. We flipped it: Atlas became creative freelancer discovery, where the brief finds the person, set out in a full brand book.

Hirers describe the person they need in plain words. Atlas reads the brief and returns ranked matches, each with a match score and the reasons behind it. From there it is one workflow to the booking: filters on every profile field, shortlists, one message thread per freelancer, team projects and the day rate visible from the start.

We built in stages from June to September 2026, with the client reviewing the working product rather than static mock-ups. In September the client sent 39 pages of feedback. We turned it into a seven-phase plan, worked through it section by section, then re-read all 39 pages against the plan to catch anything missed. Anything outside scope, such as payment escrow, was flagged rather than quietly added or dropped.

We only claimed what was true. The "trusted by" logo banner stayed empty until claims could be confirmed, and sample reviews and demo profiles are labelled as samples and demos.

• A competitor audit and a brand book covering positioning, audiences, voice and visual direction
• A public website that explains the product, shows a five-step workflow and routes hirers and freelancers to sign up
• Plain-language AI search with ranked matches, match reasons and structured filters
• Freelancer profiles with photos, skills, credits, availability, day rates, reviews and PDF export
• Shortlists, direct messaging, and team projects with briefs, files, tasks and group chat
• A jobs board with location search and job advert packages for employers