So you know that being a business owner REQUIRES you to have an outward-facing visual presence. You want to look the part, and the annoying thing(s) about design?

1. It takes a ton of time.
2. It takes a diverse skillset of tools, resources, and industry knowledge.
3. Even if you can afford to hire a designer... there's a ton of onboarding and admin, and if you're hiring contractors, the work can be inconsistent and unreliable... and you're back to square one.

Enter: Design as a Subscription.

The promise of Subscription Design is that it allows for a business or agency to submit tasks (often in something like a clickup or trello) and have them completed- no communication, onboarding, briefs, or having to design the creative yourself. You can sign up, pay your fee, and have tasks completed- usually with a 24 hour turnaround. It's almost like a software subscription... except is does all your creative automatically and reliably.

As a creative, the benefits of offering some sort of subscription service is that it allows for a source of recurring client base and the ability to be with your clients for the life of their business. At MMG Design , we offer three different subscription/retainer packages for businesses to choose from, and this often leads to us being a long-term partner for them as their business scales. In the beginning, their tasks might be creating their initial branding and fleshing out their identity.

Then, because of our past work, we can continue to create on-brand and consistent assets that will follow them throughout the life of their business.

Who is Subscription Design the Right Fit For?

Usually, subscription design serves companies that value creative, know clearly what they want, and need a skilled designer or team of creatives to crank out a reliable volume of work. The subscription business model offers several benefits for both businesses and customers.

It allows business owners to focus their minds in the business, and not have to spend time or unnecessary resources on creative. Creative and marketing is just a one time, monthly line item on the balance sheet, and it relieves the stress behind having to worry about your branding being taken care of.

Real-Life Examples

Magic Design

Magic Design has a large team of remote developers and designers who complete tasks quickly. Especially with tasks like landing pages and complex designs that must be done in webflow, they fill a certain need in the market .

Flowout

Flowout is a company that has worked with a ton of well-known brands and tasks care of their design and creative- proving the concept that successful businesses are in the market for subscription design.

Passionate Design Agency

Passionate really focuses on one thing in the core of their marketing strategy: subscription makes world class design more available and more convenient to access.

BONUS: Launch Kit

Launch Kit is a full-service marketing agency that focuses on building relationships with their customers and bringing a talented team of creatives to the table to bring a design and branding vision to life throughout the course of their marketing efforts.

Launch Kit has a great work environment, and is very transparent in their process. I've really enjoyed following them on social media and seeing how Kevin runs the business and leads a team.

Summing it up

Subscription design is a popular and proven model, and for good reason. We can tell in just the way the business is done nowadays... just think of how many of your purchases now are actually subscriptions. It create consistency, reliability, and requires less touch and headspace throughout the buying cycle. One less problem to worry about (in this case, creative) is a high value effort that a lot of companies are welling to pay for.

The examples shown are just a few cases of those that own the model and do it well. ✨

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