Creative subscription / Senior team only / Chicago, working worldwide
Your creative department, at full resolution.
A named senior team for brand, digital, campaign and motion work, on a flat monthly rate. Prices published below. First look in two business days. No headcount, no procurement cycle, no annual contract.
Art director on every brief
Pause any time*
You own everything we make
Work our team has shipped
Bradford SystemsMREDRipt ApparelChicago Bears
WingstopKraftChicago BullsAthletico
Home Run InnSpacesaver
The market01 of 06
Everyone at this price sells output. We sell direction.
A design subscription in this band is a queue. Someone takes the ticket, makes the thing, and moves to the next account before your brand is ever actually thought about. What nobody sells at this price is a person who is accountable for whether the work is any good. Halftone puts an art director on every brief from the first tier, and a creative director on your account from $3,995.
$15,000
What the enterprise creative subscriptions charge as a monthly minimum, on a twelve-month contract. Our top published tier is $3,995, month to month, with a creative director on it.
| Freelancer | Subscription tools | Halftone | Enterprise agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | One person, variable | Rotating junior queue | Named team, art director on every brief | Senior leads, junior execution |
| Monthly cost | $3k–$8k | $500–$4.5k | $1,495–$3,995 | $15k–$40k |
| Creative direction | No | No | Creative director from $3,995 | Yes, billed |
| Work in parallel | No | One at a time | Up to three tracks | Unlimited |
| Who owns the work | Check the contract | Varies by plan | You do, outright, always | Negotiated |
| Commitment | Per project | Monthly | Monthly, pause any time* | 12 months |
| Time to first work | 1–2 weeks | 2–3 days | 1–2 business days | 3–6 weeks |
Selected work02 of 06
Range is the point.
A brand system, a product interface and a campaign are different problems. The same team handles all three, which is why they stay consistent.
Process03 of 06
A picture resolves in four passes.
Every engagement runs the same four stages, in order. You always know which one you are in and what comes back at the end of it.
01
Brief
A kickoff call first. You meet the people who will be on your account and we walk through how requests, revisions and delivery actually run. After that, send briefs whenever you have them, on our one-page template.
EmailSlackYour board
Kickoff, then any time
02
Direction
Two routes, never five. Each one is a real argument for a different answer, with the reasoning written down beside it. This is the first look the subscription promises.
Day 1–2
03
Production
The chosen route is built out across every format you need. Revisions are unlimited and handled inside the same track.
Rolling
04
Handoff
Working files, fonts, licenses and a short written rationale, delivered to a shared Drive folder. Everything transfers to your accounts. Nothing stays locked to us.
On delivery
Scope04 of 06
What the subscription covers.
Brand identity
Naming, marks, type systems, color, guidelines, rollout.
Digital product
Interface design, design systems, prototypes, handoff specs.
Web
Marketing sites and landing pages, designed and front-end built.
Campaign
Concepts, key visuals, paid social, display, out of home.
Motion
Logo systems in motion, product explainers, social cutdowns.
Packaging
Structure, dielines, label systems, print-ready mechanicals.
Presentation
Investor decks, sales enablement, template systems.
Content systems
Templates and kits your own team can run without us.
Pricing05 of 06
The price is on the page.
A workstream is one thing being actively designed. Queue as many requests behind it as you like, with unlimited revisions inside a track. The first three tiers are built to stay simple: send the brief, get the work back. Partner is for when you want us in the meeting where the brief gets decided.
For a small team that needs one thing designed properly at a time.
$1,495/ month
Start with Studio - 1 active workstream
- Senior designer, art director on every brief
- Brand, digital, web and campaign design
- First look in 2 business days
- Unlimited queued requests and revisions
- 1 stakeholder seat
For marketing teams running a brand and a campaign at once.
$2,495/ month
Start with Studio Plus - 2 active workstreams
- Dedicated art director on your account
- Adds motion and landing page builds
- First look in 2 business days
- Unlimited queued requests and revisions
- Up to 5 stakeholder seats
For companies where the brand itself is what is on the line.
$3,995/ month
Start with Studio Pro - 3 active workstreams
- Creative director owns your account
- Adds web development, packaging and environments
- Priority track: first look next business day
- Quarterly brand and creative strategy session
- Unlimited stakeholder seats
For teams who want a creative director in the room, not just on the work.
Customfrom $5k
Talk through scope - 3+ workstreams, scoped to your year
- Your creative director joins your internal team calls
- Roadmap and campaign planning with your leadership
- A direct channel in your Slack, not a ticket form
- Written response-time commitments
- Security review and MSA supported
Everything we make for your brand is owned by your brand
Month to month, cancel any time
No hourly billing, no percentage of ad spend
The team06 of 06
You get the people on this page.
No account layer between you and whoever is drawing. The person who took your brief is the person who presents the work.
RH
Ryan Hernandez
PrincipalBrand and campaign work across agency, SaaS and financial services. Sets the direction on every engagement and stays on the account.
IB
Ian Brady
Creative DirectorPreviously on work for the Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls and Athletico. Runs the brief from kickoff through delivery.
PR
Pati Ronda
Art DirectorBrand systems and campaign work across food and CPG. Reviews the craft on every deliverable before it leaves.
QuestionsBefore you book
The obvious ones.
What counts as one workstream?
One thing being actively designed at a time. A brand identity is a workstream. A website is a workstream. You can queue as many as you want behind the active one, and we move to the next the moment the current one clears. Three workstreams on Studio Pro means three things genuinely progressing in parallel, with different people on each and one creative director across all of them.
How is this different from the other subscriptions at this price?
Accountability for the work, not just production of it. Most services in this band route your request to whoever is free, which is why they sell turnaround times rather than judgment. Every Halftone tier has an art director reviewing the brief and the output, and from Studio Pro a creative director owns your account outright. That is normally a $15,000-a-month thing.
Do you use AI in the work?
Yes, for reference gathering, resizing, versioning and exports, which is most of what used to make design slow. Concepts, art direction, typography and every final call are made by the people listed above. We will tell you which is which on any given deliverable if you ask.
What happens if we need to stop?
You have two options and we would rather be plain about both. Pause costs $150 a month to hold the account. That keeps your team assigned, your brand files loaded and your place in the queue, so you come back to the people who already know your brand rather than starting over. Pause for a month or a year; the hold is the same.
Cancel costs nothing. Month to month, no exit call, no fee, and every file is already yours. What it does mean is that we close the account: the team is reassigned and the setup goes away. Coming back later is a genuine restart, with a new kickoff, brand onboarding again, and whatever pricing is current at the time.
The $150 is not a penalty, it is what holding senior capacity actually costs us. If you are unsure which way to go, cancel. We would rather you leave cleanly and come back than pay to hold something you are not using.
Who owns the work?
Your brand does, outright and permanently. Everything Halftone makes for you belongs to you the moment it is delivered: working files, source documents, and the fonts and licenses we bought for the project. Websites we build transfer into your own accounts. There is no scenario where leaving us costs you your own brand assets.
Can we see the work before we commit?
Book the walkthrough and we will show relevant work from the same category, plus the actual files behind one of them. If the fit is wrong we will say so on that call.
Next step
Bring the brief you keep pushing to next quarter.
Twenty minutes. We will tell you what we would do, what it would cost, and whether it should be us at all.