FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Our full branding engagement. It starts at $22,000 and runs four to five months, and it takes a brand from wherever it stands now to finished and usable: strategy, creative direction, identity, brand guidelines, a Brand Command Center, one collateral application, and your website. Brands that need a larger site and more packaging move into an expanded engagement, which runs $32,000 to $60,000 over six to eight months. Where you land depends on how much has to get built, and we tell you before you sign anything.

Then you want Core Identity. It starts at $12,000 and runs two months in three phases, with deliverables released in every one: Guided Brand Strategy, brand strategy, your identity and full logo suite, brand guidelines, an identity deck, a Brand Command Center, and the branding assets you need for marketing and everyday use. It does not include a collateral application or a website, which is what keeps it at two months and at that number. If even that is further than you can go right now, Guided Brand Strategy at $499 gets the vision out of your head first, and it is credited in full against either engagement later.

Yes. Every engagement, Core Identity included, starts with it, and nothing gets designed until it is complete. Your deposit opens a portal built around your brand, and most founders start working through it before their start date. It is included in the engagement price, and if you bought it on its own beforehand, the full amount comes off your engagement.

Guided Brand Strategy, brand strategy, three creative directions with one carried forward, identity and a full logo suite, branding assets and artwork, brand guidelines, an identity deck, a Brand Command Center, one collateral application, a Compact Bespoke website, and final file handoff. Your agreement lists every deliverable and says which ones you own outright and which are licensed to you.

Anything outside the agreed scope is quoted as additional work or picked up under DESIGNFLOW. That covers concept development and naming, photo and video production, extended packaging programs and large SKU families, custom artwork beyond what the identity and your collateral application call for, launch campaigns, ongoing content production, decks beyond your identity deck, and any collateral beyond the one in your engagement.

The one piece in your engagement that carries the brand off the screen and into somebody's hands. It is either packaging or merch and apparel, and you choose which. Menus, hang tags, signage, print collateral and decks are real work too, and they run through DESIGNFLOW or get quoted alongside the engagement.

Yes. More packaging is exactly what an expanded engagement is built for, and anything past that runs through DESIGNFLOW once the brand is built. What we will not do is quietly fold extra applications into the floor price, because that is how a project runs late and gets thin. You see the cost before anything moves.

In stages. Each phase is reviewed and approved in writing before the next one starts, and deliverables are released along the way instead of held to the end. That is what keeps a project moving instead of drifting past its dates.

Yes. A Compact Bespoke site, around five page systems, ten published pages, light CMS and up to five products, is built inside the engagement from the finished brand outward, which is the order that actually works. A bigger site moves the engagement into the expanded band. Core Identity does not include a website.

Yes. A website on its own starts at $18,000, or at $12,000 if we built your brand, because the identity and the asset library already exist and nobody has to interpret them. We do not quote a site we have not seen, so it starts with the Website Discovery Form and access to whatever you have now. What you bring decides what gets added. A brand that is ready adds nothing. A thin one, a logo and little else, adds an Art Direction and Asset Pack from $5,000. With nothing to design from, Core Identity at $12,000 comes first, because we do not build a site on nothing.

Whatever fits the project. We work in Wix Studio and Shopify most often, and we build on other platforms when the project calls for it. The platform is a decision we make with you based on what the site has to do, who maintains it and where the business is going, not a default we apply to everyone.

Usually yes. Tell us what it is built on and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right people to take it over or whether you are better served rebuilding. We will not take on a platform we cannot do good work in.

Inside a brand engagement, a Compact Bespoke site is included from $22,000, a Typical Site takes the engagement from $32,000, and a Large Complex build from $45,000. On its own, a Compact Bespoke site starts at $18,000, a Typical Site at $26,000, and a Large Complex build at $35,000. If we built your brand, each of those starts lower, at $12,000, $20,000 and $30,000. Applications with accounts, databases and dashboards are scoped individually.

A Compact Bespoke site on its own runs about three months. Larger builds take longer, and you get real dates once the assessment is done. Inside an engagement the site comes after the brand is settled, which is part of why a brand engagement runs four to five months.

A focused marketing site, around ten pages with light CMS and up to five products, is right for most founder-led brands, and it is the site a brand engagement includes. Some brands need a Typical Site, with more templates, deeper CMS, richer original work and more of the copy written by us. Some need a Large Complex build because they sell online at scale, migrate a lot of content, or need a large art program and complex integrations. The Compact Bespoke size is a firm cap, so we tell you which one you are before you commit.

Core Identity runs two months. A brand engagement runs four to five, and an expanded engagement six to eight. The short end assumes you arrive knowing your concept, review on time, and need a straightforward site. A bigger build, or review cycles that run long, push toward the far end. If the concept still needs developing, or the project needs naming, that work comes first and is scoped on its own.

Guided Brand Strategy and the Strategic Foundation come first, then brand strategy and your Brand Command Center, then creative direction and identity. In a brand engagement your collateral application follows, then the website, then refinement and final handoff. Nothing gets designed until Guided Brand Strategy is complete, and no phase starts until the one before it is approved. Core Identity runs the same sequence and finishes before collateral and the website.

Three things move it. How long review and revisions take on your side, how much is actually getting built, and whether the concept was settled before we started. A founder who knows what they are building, approves as we go and needs a straightforward site lands at the fast end. Every contract is written to its own project, so your agreement states your dates.

Then that is the first job, and it happens before the engagement clock starts. Guided Brand Strategy is often enough to get there. If you want to talk it through with us first, a Concept Development consultation is an hour on exactly that. Larger concept development and naming are scoped as their own piece of work.

Sometimes, and it costs more. Compressing a build means reordering the studio and holding capacity that was going elsewhere, so rush timelines are quoted case by case and carry a premium.

Three. Once the strategy is settled we present three distinct creative directions for the identity, and you choose one to take forward. We build the brand out of the direction you pick rather than blending all three into something that means nothing.

Three rounds at creative direction and identity, three on your collateral application, two on website design, and one on your brand guidelines and Brand Command Center. A round is one consolidated set of feedback from the one person approving on your side. That is enough to get it right and few enough that decisions actually get made.

We keep going and bill the additional rounds at $175 an hour, estimated and approved by you in writing before the work is done. We tell you when you are getting close to the limit, so it never shows up as a surprise on an invoice.

Yes, directly. Revision cycles are the main reason an engagement runs to the long end of its term. Fast, decisive feedback from one person is the single biggest thing you control.

No. Concepts are whole ideas, and the reason a brand feels considered is that one point of view was carried all the way through. Three directions averaged together turn into something that means nothing to anyone.

The written decisions underneath the brand. Who it is for, what it stands for, what it sells beyond the obvious, how it talks, and what it will never do. It is what everything visual is built from and what keeps future decisions consistent.

The made part of the brand. You get a full logo suite, typography, color, and the branding assets and artwork that give the brand something to work with beyond a mark. That last part is where most engagements stop and ours does not.

Every version of the mark you need in practice. Primary, secondary, brandmark, wordmark, stacked and horizontal lockups, and the file formats for print, screen and embroidery.

The symbol on its own, separate from the name. It has to work small, in one color, and with no words attached. When people recognize the shape without reading anything, it is doing its job.

The artwork and graphics around the logo that make a brand usable day to day. Patterns, illustrations, textures, secondary graphics, badges. They are what you actually post, print and package with, and they are the reason our brands do not run dry a month after launch.

A founder-facing dashboard built for your company. Positioning, mission, messaging, descriptions, keywords, content prompts, hooks, platform ideas, important links and product information, in one place you can actually find six months from now. Core Identity and every brand engagement include one, and on DESIGNFLOW we keep it current.

The document that tells anyone else how to use the brand correctly. Logo usage, type, color, artwork, spacing, and the reasoning behind the rules. You need it the moment someone other than you makes something.

At handoff you receive your final logo suite, branding assets and artwork, brand guidelines, identity deck, and the finished Brand Command Center. A brand engagement adds your completed collateral application and your website. Your brand core comes as vector and raster production files, and it is yours outright. Licensed work, such as standalone artwork and production layouts, comes finished and production ready. Your agreement lists every file.

A logo is one deliverable. You are getting the strategy underneath it, artwork and graphics you can market with, a Command Center to run it from, and guidelines so it survives contact with other people. Most studios hand over a logo suite and a PDF.

A guided workspace that helps a founder get their vision out of their head and into a developed concept. You talk, we shape it, and what comes back is a Strategic Foundation clear enough to hand to anyone and have a real brand built from it.

Founders who know what they are building and cannot yet say it cleanly. It is also for anyone who wants the thinking done before committing to a full engagement, or who needs something concrete to show a partner, an investor or a designer.

$499 on its own. It is included in every engagement, Core Identity too, so if you buy it first and then engage us, the full amount comes off your engagement.

No. The Strategic Foundation is yours and you can take it anywhere. It exists so a founder can articulate a concept properly, whoever ends up building from it.

Because design built on an undecided idea falls apart the first time it meets the market, and because everything downstream, the identity, the collateral and the site, is built off that thinking. Settle it first and the rest moves fast. Skip it and you pay for it later.

Deciding what a physical place is before it gets built. The concept, the story, the experience, the atmosphere and the reason someone crosses town for it. Buildings are not placemaking. Reasons to be inside them are.

Developers, hospitality and restaurant groups, hotel and resort operators, mixed-use and adaptive reuse projects, retail and food halls, members clubs, and founders opening a flagship.

Placemaking engagements start at $110,000. The work runs in two parts: concept development first, over two to three months, and then the build, billed monthly against a six month minimum. An art program, where there is one, is quoted per piece and never folded into the monthly. Every project is scoped individually, because a single restaurant and a mixed-use development are different jobs.

Before the architect starts drawing. The concept drives square footage, adjacencies, materials, lighting and the guest journey. Hiring after means paying to redesign around an idea that arrived late.

Yes. We define the creative and brand vision and hand your team a clear brief so everyone builds toward one thing. We are not architects or engineers and we stay out of your team's lane.

Yes. Architecture and interior firms, developers and other agencies bring us in as the brand, concept and art partner on projects they lead. If you want to allocate concept development, brand development or design work to us on a large project, that is a normal arrangement and we stay out of your lane entirely.

Half up front, and nothing starts until it clears. If your start date is more than a month out, that half can split in two: a quarter to hold your month and a quarter on your start date. The balance runs in installments every three weeks from the start, front-loaded so the smallest payment comes last, and your agreement fixes every amount and every date at signature. You can pay by card or by ACH bank debit, and any installment paid by ACH is three percent less. Larger and international engagements can pay by bank transfer. Deposits are never refundable. Placemaking runs on its own schedule, set in its agreement.

No. Every client has different needs, so scope, timeline and the payment schedule are written into each contract. What stays consistent is what each level includes, how revisions work, and how we communicate.

Your brand core transfers to you outright through an art transfer of ownership, on full payment, with no licence conditions. That is your logo suite, brandmark, wordmark and lockups, your color and type systems, your brand guidelines, your identity deck, the patterns, textures, badges, icon sets and illustration built as part of the identity, and your Brand Command Center content. Yours to use, change and register as a trademark. Original artwork that stands on its own, and production layout work like packaging, menus and your website design, come to you under an exclusive rights managed licence, which means we never license or sell that work to anyone else. You receive it finished and production ready, and you can buy any piece outright whenever you want.

We talk about it and put it in writing before anything moves. Every change is priced, dated and approved by both of us first, so you know the cost and the timeline effect before we proceed rather than after.

Any of them. We work with founders starting from nothing, existing brands that need rebuilding, and brands that are already solid and need creative for a launch or campaign.

Across the board, mostly founder-led brands. Consumer and product, hospitality and restaurants, hotels, retail, developments, music and culture.

We are located in Arizona and we work remotely with brands across the United States.

The people who own the studio. You work with us directly from the first conversation to the final file, and nothing passes through an account layer or a junior you never meet.

Your brand core is yours outright, along with your domain, your accounts and your content, and you run it with your guidelines and your Command Center. Your website comes with thirty days of technical defect support after launch, and from day thirty-one it is yours to run. If you would rather keep us close, DESIGNFLOW is ongoing creative from $5,000 a month for one active workstream, which is where most brands land once the build is done and the work turns into a steady stream of new things.

An hour with Leah, paid in full up front, for a founder who wants real direction without starting an engagement. There are three. Concept Development is $250, for an idea that is not a business yet. Brand Concept Development is $350, for a brand that exists and is not landing. Placemaking Concept Development is $500, for a physical space. You book your session any time within six months of buying it. The hour is the whole product and nothing is delivered afterward, and if you start an engagement within six months of your session, the full fee comes off it.

Book a call. We talk through what you are building, scope the work together, and send a written proposal and agreement. For a website, the Website Discovery Form comes first so we can see what we are pricing. Guided Brand Strategy and consultations can be bought straight from the site. Engagements never are.

No. A new website is built inside a brand engagement or as its own website engagement. DESIGNFLOW keeps a site current once it exists: maintenance, content updates, new sections, seasonal changes and the small frequent edits that pile up.

One piece of work moving at a time. You bring us the next thing when the current one ships. $5,000 a month covers one workstream, and for most brands that is the right pace because the work stays focused instead of spread thin.

When two things have to run in parallel. Say you need a poster series and an apparel drop both finished inside two months. With one workstream the second waits for the first. With two, they run at the same time. A second workstream is $3,000 a month and you add it only in the months you need it, so you are never paying for capacity sitting idle.

Yes. It is month by month. Busy season, a launch, a deadline that moved, add it. When things settle, drop back to one.

A commercial licence with exclusive managed rights. You can use the work commercially and nobody else is using it. DESIGNFLOW does not include a transfer of ownership, so the original artwork stays with the studio. That is the main difference between DESIGNFLOW and a brand engagement, where your brand core transfers to you outright.

Yes. In an engagement your brand core already transfers to you, so there is nothing to buy there. For anything licensed, whether a standalone piece from your engagement or work made under DESIGNFLOW, you can buy an art transfer of ownership at any time. It is priced on the piece and how you intend to use it: from $500 for a single campaign or one-off, from $1,500 for ongoing brand use, from $3,000 for packaging or retail, and quoted individually for national distribution or merchandise where the art is the product. Buying an illustration for national packaging is a different thing from buying one for a single campaign.

Because we are artists and the original work has value beyond the job it was made for. Your brand core is the exception, and it transfers to you outright in an engagement, because a brand you cannot fully own is not much of a brand. Everything else is licensed exclusively to you, and you can buy it outright if you want to.

BMG, Dark Horse Records and the George Harrison estate on the Beatles catalog. Anthropologie. Vissla. Duvin Design Co. Workroom & Partners. Restaurant and hospitality brands including The Ends and Lost Bowls de Guadalupe. Work of ours has run in Vogue, shown at Design Miami, and sat on shelves at Sprouts, The Fresh Market and Pop Up Grocer.

Both, and the process does not change. We have worked with major music catalogs and national retailers, and we have taken founders from nothing to a finished brand. The same two people do the work either way.

Founders who care about the visuals and the artwork, and who want an identity that actually stands out. Not minimal to the point of soulless, and not so polished it loses the common touch. If you want a brand that feels handmade and made specifically for you, that is what we do. We do not use templates and nothing we hand you came off Creative Market.

We are artists who do branding, not an agency that outsources the art. We move faster because there are fewer people between the decision and the work, and nothing is diluted passing through hands that were not in the room when it started. You get made work, not assembled work.

No. We do not hire interns and we do not hand your project to a junior. The people you talk to are the people who make the work, start to finish. That is the reason the quality holds.

Trello for the workflow and Figma for the design work, and both are part of every engagement. Trello is where approvals, feedback and files live, so you can see where things stand instead of waiting for a status email, and you hear back from us there within two business days.

Deliberately few, and it is a limit rather than a sales line. Capacity is what protects the work, so we cap how many engagements run at once instead of filling the calendar and thinning everything out.

Nostalgia is our niche. We are an American studio pulling from mid-century modern and the design language of the fifties, sixties and seventies, and from classic Americana more broadly. We infuse those eras into work that belongs in the present rather than dressing a brand up as a period piece. It is why our work does not look like the beige minimalism everyone else is making.

Yes, and it is something we are known for. Concept decks for placemaking and branding projects, and sales, pitch and investor decks when you need the idea to land in a room. Your identity deck is part of every engagement. Other decks are made through DESIGNFLOW or quoted on their own.

Yes. Original artwork is drawn by hand for the brands we build, and it is not stock. Licensing an existing piece is priced per piece, based on the work itself and how you intend to use it. Write to hello@thenewtonagencystudio.com and we will scope it.

Yes. Original artwork is made by hand and can be commissioned outside a brand engagement. It is priced per piece, based on the work involved and how you intend to use it. Tell us what you have in mind at hello@thenewtonagencystudio.com.