Design systems
Tokens, components and documentation that live in the same language as your codebase, so the colour in the design file and the colour in production are the same colour for longer than a week..
Design retainer
A designer inside your week, without the hire.
A fixed block of hours each month, worked from your board, at your priority order. Most things come back within two working days, and you can stop with a month's notice.
The problem
The gap between too much and not enough.
There is a stage where design work arrives constantly but never in large enough pieces to justify a salary, a laptop and a management overhead. Agencies do not want it either, because it is fifteen small things a month rather than one project with a kickoff.
So it lands on whoever has a spare hour. The quality is uneven, the founder is doing production work, and the brand you paid for six months ago slowly stops being applied because nobody has time to check.
A retainer fits that shape. Same person every month, already knows your system, works from a list you control, and is not trying to convert every request into a project proposal.
“We do not have enough work for a full-time designer, but we have enough that the founder is making banner images at midnight.”
The situation this exists for
What you get
Everything in the box.
How it actually runs, rather than what is in the brochure. The specifics are agreed in writing before the first month.
- An agreed number of hours each month, tracked openly in a document you can read at any time.
- A shared board where you add work and set the order. We do not reprioritise it without asking.
- Two working day turnaround on standard items; larger pieces are scheduled with a date up front.
- Direct access to the designer doing the work, in your own chat tool, without an account layer.
- Files handed over as they are finished, into your storage, rather than held until the end of a phase.
- A short monthly note: what was done, what the hours went on, what is queued.
- Unused hours roll into the following month once, so a quiet month is not money burnt.
- One month of notice on either side, and no penalty for pausing between funding rounds.
How it runs
Four steps, start to handover.
Onboard
We learn your system, get access to the files and tools, and agree what counts as standard turnaround.
Queue
You add work to the board with a priority and a date. We confirm what fits in the month.
Ship
Work comes back in small pieces, reviewed in the same thread, with files landing in your storage as they finish.
Review
A monthly note on hours and output, and a short call every quarter on whether the shape still fits.
Price
From ₹1,20,000
Per month, rolling. One month of notice on either side.
The starting band covers a regular weekly block. Larger blocks are priced proportionally, and we will tell you when your volume has grown past the point where hiring is the better deal.
Questions
What teams ask before booking.
What sort of work do teams actually send?
Landing pages, deck updates, social sets, email campaigns, pitch materials, product screens, event graphics, and the constant small fixes. If it is design and it fits in the hours, it is in scope.
What happens if we do not use the hours?
They roll forward once. We will also tell you if you are consistently under, because paying for a retainer you are not using is a bad deal and you will eventually resent it.
Can we pause?
Yes, with a month's notice, and restart later without an onboarding fee within six months. Funding cycles are lumpy and pretending otherwise just makes people feel awkward about asking.
Is it the same designer every month?
Yes. That is most of the value. Someone who already knows your system does the work in a third of the time and does not need briefing on the basics.
Do you sign an NDA?
Routinely, and we will sign yours rather than insisting on ours. We can also work inside your own tools and accounts if your security policy requires it.
Also relevant
Two services that sit next to this one.
Social media
A small set of post formats, built so your marketing coordinator can fill them in on a Tuesday morning and have it look like the rest of your brand without asking anybody..
Tell us what a typical month looks like.
List the design work that came up last month, including the things the founder did at midnight. We will tell you what size block that is and whether a retainer is even the right answer.