Design retainers, without the hours.
A senior studio on a flat monthly fee: an unlimited queue, one to three desks working it, turnarounds that hold. No timesheets, no meter, no surprises.
Hourly retainers punish everyone
Twenty+ years has made us fast, and hourly billing turns that speed into your discount and our pay cut. So we price what you are actually buying: work, moving. A flat fee buys a standing lane into the studio. Brief as much as you like; we work it in order, with senior eyes on every piece. Three rules hold it up:
The queue is unlimited
Brief everything, any time. Nothing expires, nothing is lost, and you can reshuffle it whenever priorities change.
The desks are fixed
Your tier sets how many jobs are worked at once: one, two or three desks. It is the honest limit that keeps the fee flat and the turnarounds true.
The rounds are fast
Most rounds come back in 2 to 3 business days, and your feedback jumps the queue, so amends turn faster still. We work Monday to Friday on SAST (UTC+2): UK and European hours, with afternoon overlap for the US.
One shared board.
No status meetings.
Your retainer lives on a shared board you can see, brief into and comment on. Every job sits in one of five places, and the board never lies about which:
Queued ∞
Homepage banner suitenext up
Newsletter templatequeued
Event badge setqueued
Unlimited. Reorder it whenever you like.
On the desk 2 / 2
Q3 report layoutdesign round · day 2
New pack artworkamends · front of queue
Your streams. Never more cards here than your tier, never idle while the queue has work.
With you 2
Brochure v2your review
Social campaign assetsyour review
Doesn't use a desk. Send feedback and it jumps to the front.
At print 1
275g pouchproof approved
We check every printer proof before it runs.
Done 14
Shipped this monthsource files, yours
Everything we make is yours, source files included.
Seven jobs in flight, two desks in use. Work sitting with you or at the printer releases its desk, so open briefs always outnumber streams.
Who does the work?
Creative direction sits with our founder; senior design and production artwork are assigned per job by one traffic manager. No project manager playing telephone. That approach is dead.
What counts as a request?
One brief-sized job. For example:
A new pack from your existing system
A report or pitch deck laid out
A homepage banner suite
An event identity rolled out to collateral
A brochure or one-pager
An email template
A social campaign's assets
Print-ready artwork from a dieline
Bigger pieces, like a new packaging concept, still sit inside the retainer. They just get a stated date up front.
Pick your number of streams
Every tier gets the same studio, the same senior standard, the same board and the same 2 to 3 day rounds. The only question is how many desks you need at once. Start where this month's workload sits and change tier at any billing cycle. For scale: one senior hire costs £60,000 a year or more, covers one skillset, and cannot be paused.
Design Partner
One Stream
The steady drumbeat. One job being worked at any moment, unlimited briefs in flight around it.
$2,950or £2,350 / month
- One desk, unlimited queue
- Senior design across brand, digital, print and social
- Unlimited brands
- Unlimited revisions on the active brief
Where most clients land
Design Partner
Two Streams
A production lane and a creative lane, neither blocking the other. The extension-of-your-team tier.
$4,950or £3,950 / month
- Two desks, unlimited queue
- Creative direction across both lanes
- Priority queue; urgent work jumps it
- Monthly planning call, calendar managed with you
Design Partner
Three Streams
Launch mode. For range launches and rebrand rollouts, when everything genuinely runs at once.
$6,950or £5,550 / month
- Three desks, unlimited queue
- Same-week lane for launch-critical artwork
- Creative direction across the range
- Quarterly range-planning session
Embedded
Full Studio
Not a lane. The whole studio, pointed at your brand, channels included.
from $7,950or £6,450 / month
- Streams scaled to scope, agreed in the call
- Campaigns, designed and executed
- Social and PPC management; ad spend always yours, always pass-through
- Quarterly strategy session and monthly reporting
The terms are the safety net. Two-month first term, then month to month: pause in whole cycles, change tier at any cycle, cancel with one cycle's notice. Full Studio carries a sixty-day handover window instead. All prices exclude VAT, are zero-rated outside South Africa, and we invoice in dollars or pounds.
Compare it to a hire, not an agency
Most brands weighing this up are really choosing between us and a full-time designer. That comparison is fair, so here it is, played straight.
One senior hire
$75,000+ / year
£60,000 or more in the UK once employment costs land, for one skillset and 46 working weeks. Packaging, production artwork, e-commerce design and creative direction are four different skills. Very few people carry all four; that is why studios exist.
An hourly retainer
The meter
Every brief becomes a negotiation, every invoice a surprise, and the supplier quietly profits from being slow. You spend your energy managing the relationship instead of the brand.
A stream
$2,950 to $6,950 / month
Four skillsets under one flat fee. Switched on in days, paused when you need to breathe, stepped up for a launch and back down after. No employment contract does that.
The parts that never change
Unlimited requests and unlimited revisions on the active brief
Senior eyes on every single piece before it leaves
Production-accurate artwork, dielines to printer proofs
Everything we make is yours, source files included
A shared board you can see, brief and reorder any time
Async by default: no meetings you did not ask for
Feedback goes to the front of the queue, every time
Honest turnarounds, and a stated date when a job is big
Retainers are most of what we do
View the archiveThis is not a new idea we are trying on. Retained work is most of our income and has run on this rhythm for years. The board above is a real one.
Aduna
Superfood brand, UK. Packaging retainer since 2018: pouches, tubes, capsules, retail refreshes and the web assets between, across a range that keeps growing.
Climate Fund Managers
Investment manager, The Hague. A standing monthly stream for reports, valuations and investor communications, where production accuracy is not optional.
iSAMS
School management software, UK. A standing stream of marketing and campaign design: social assets, guides, brochures and event stands, shipped worldwide.
World Travel Awards
Global events brand, UK. Event identities and collateral delivered on immovable dates, year after year.
Asked & answered
How much work fits in a month?
Honestly ranged, because jobs vary: roughly 8 to 10 requests a month on one stream, 15 to 20 on two, 22 to 30 on three. A request is one brief-sized job. If your feedback comes back quickly, you will land at the top of the range; the queue never sits idle waiting for us.
Do unused hours roll over?
There are no hours, so there is nothing to lose. The queue keeps its place, the subscription buys standing access, and if a quiet month is coming you can pause a cycle or step down a tier. Take December off; the board will wait.
What if something is urgent?
Tell us, and it jumps your own queue at every tier. Three Streams adds a same-week lane for launch-critical artwork, which is what that tier is for. What we will not do is quietly bump another client to serve you, because that is what would be happening to you otherwise.
Several of our jobs are always mid-flight. How does that fit one or two streams?
A stream counts what is on the desk, not what is open. The moment a job goes to you for review, or to the printer, it releases its desk and the next queued job starts. When your feedback returns, that job re-enters at the front. Five open briefs flow comfortably through two streams; on our longest-running retainer they always have.
Who exactly does the work?
The studio. Creative direction sits with our founder, and senior designers and production artists are assigned per job by one traffic manager. You brief the board and the person doing the work reads your words directly. We deliberately do not promise you one named individual, because a retainer that depends on one person’s diary is a retainer that stalls.
What sits outside the retainer?
Full rebrands, ground-up website builds, photography, 3D rendering, media spend and print buying. Those are quoted as standalone projects with their own timelines. We will check printer proofs inside the retainer; we do not buy the print run.
Can we change tier?
At any billing cycle. Step up for a launch quarter, step back down after. Most clients move once or twice a year, and the board carries straight across.
Why an application call and not a buy button?
Because seats are real. Every stream we sell is working time we must actually have, so we cap seats to what we can actually serve. The call is thirty minutes: you show us the workload, we tell you plainly which tier fits, including when the answer is the cheaper one. And if nothing is open, we say so, and hold you the next seat in line.
How do we start?
Book the call. If we fit, onboarding takes a few days: the agreement, the board, your brand files, and a kickoff. Your first request is usually back before the first month’s invoice is.
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