When it comes to bespoke, sassy website builds, digital prints and graphic arts — Duosista is your go-to design team.

With over 10 years of experience, no digital and web design challenge is too hard for Duosista. The company is established in Queensland, Australia and offers the following services: graphics and website design, WordPress website design and White label services. They are also experts in logo design & branding and book design & covers. 

Kylie Meller is the woman behind Duosista’s success and she is one of WP Hosting’s energetic partners. She’s a fun-loving multi-talented genius who never hesitate to share her experiences as an entrepreneur and WordPress enthusiast. 

A quick intro: Who are you and what’s your background?

My name is Kylie Meller and I’ve been working as a print and digital designer for over 15 years. I started my career as a graphic designer, finally moving into web design as a way of adding more services to my freelance design business. I’m a self-taught WordPress website designer.

How did you get started with Duosista?

Duosista started out as a way for me to avoid having to go back to work after having my first child. I really wanted a work-life balance, and I couldn’t see that being possible if I had to work again in an agency. The business started with me working a lot of nights. Over time, as my client base grew, I had enough cash flow to employ another full-time designer. Now there are two of us and for now, that is the perfect number.

Who are your target customers and what do you offer them that differentiates you from your competitors?

We like to work with small to medium businesses who want one point of contact for all their print and digital design needs. What makes us different is, we aim to make the entire process, easy and stress-free. They choose us because we are reliable and hardworking. We care about their projects as much as they do.

When and how did you discover WordPress?

I discovered WordPress back in 2010. Back then it was WordPress 3.0. I needed a website for my business and I wanted to make it myself. I can’t actually remember how I stumbled upon WordPress, but it was the 5-minute install that really resonated with me. It sounded easy and something I could manage.

Tell us about your WordPress ‘tech stack’: What plugins, themes, page builders, etc. do you prefer using and why?

We build all our sites using Avada framework. What that means is that we design our initial concepts in Illustrator, then once approved, we start our build in Avada. Our must-have plugins for all projects are:

• Better Search & Replace – we use this to migrate website URL’s
• Gravity Forms – we use this for all contact forms and sites that need to receive payments but don’t want a shop
• Password Protected – a simple way to quickly password protect your WordPress site until launch
• WP Help – we use this plugin to provide detailed, hierarchical documentation for our customers. We keep information like colours break-ups, plugins, serial numbers etc. We also record any training notes or load training videos into this plugin for clients to reference back to.

What tools, whether within WordPress or a third-party solution, do you use for project management and collaboration?

We use Streamtime Classic to manage all our projects. It does all our quoting, project management, purchase orders and invoicing in one program.

Can you tell us about a project that you’re particularly proud of?

I’m really proud of a few projects we have done over time. Website-wise, my favourites are AHJackson & Co and Seafarms. In the graphic design, I really love the branding we completed for the Walton Stores and Meridian Urban.

Thinking about WordPress’ roadmap, what do you think about Project Gutenberg? Any expectations?

I’m pretty excited to see how Gutenberg might change the way we currently design and develop WordPress websites. Any change to WordPress which requires the use of fewer plugins is a win for me. My only worry will be seeing how the team at Avada go in ensuring their theme is compatible with this new version.

What’s in the pipeline for Duosista in the next 12 months?

We are looking to launch a new website for the business at the end of the year. It’s time we updated our website to showcase what we can do for clients. We are also spending time streamlining the packages we offer in web development.

To conclude, what’s the best business advice that you’ve ever received?

There are three things I always kept in mind when running my business. My father, who’s run his own successful business for over 40 years, passed these onto me:

• Don’t ever get a business partner!
• Always pay yourself the least amount possible and keep the rest for emergencies, tax and those times when it’s quiet.
• Tomorrow is always a fresh chance at a new start, so don’t let today get you down.

I’ve lived by these rules from day one, and I think they have helped me reach 10 years of business successfully (especially point 2).