engagements

Retainer

Typically 2.5 to 5 days a week · Starting at 18K/Month*
Strategic brand solutions at every business stage

A design retainer is for ongoing work where you need a design partner, not a singleengagement. It gives you continuous access to the UntilNow team, whether you plug in one specialist or an embedded crew, so design capability scales with your business rather than starting and stopping with every brief.

engagements

Venture Investments

A design retainer is for ongoing work where you need a design partner, not a singleengagement. It gives you continuous access to the UntilNow team, whether you plug in one specialist or an embedded crew, so design capability scales with your business rather than starting and stopping with every brief.

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As our principal product design partner, UntilNow have helped drive our greatest period of growth.
Spriggy

Spriggy

Head of Product Experience

Spriggy

Who you’ll work with

Fractional support from people who’ve done it before.

We bring together UntilNow team members and independent experts to offer high-impact, hands-on support.

Rob McCreery
Part Time
Advisory
Part Time
Advisory
Rob McCreery
Fractional Business Strategy

Helps clients set long-term strategy that will lead to success, whilst also managing the UntilNow business and helping it grow. Previously: Deloitte, Fusion Labs.

Ian Davis
Part Time
Advisory
Part Time
Advisory
Ian Davis
Fractional COO/CEO ‘Wingman’/Growth Advisor

Helps founders and CEOs drive growth, innovation, and transformation across tech, media, telecom and education. Previously: Telstra, Kayo and Foxtel.

Kaga Bryan
Part Time
Advisory
Part Time
Advisory
Kaga Bryan
Head of Brand

Helps clients build compelling brand and creative strategies. Previously: The Iconic, Publicis Groupe.

Tyler Wilchek
Part Time
Advisory
Part Time
Advisory
Tyler Wilchek
Fractional CMO

Helps clients grow through data-driven marketing and strategic leadership. Previously: The Iconic, BricX, BoozeBud, Montu.

Francesco de Chirico
Part Time
Advisory
Part Time
Advisory
Francesco de Chirico
Head of Design

Helps clients define and deliver high-impact product and design strategies. Previously: Airtasker, The Iconic, Campaign Monitor.

Simon Reynolds
Part Time
Advisory
Part Time
Advisory
Simon Reynolds
Fractional CMO

Helps founders and scale marketplaces by embedding directly into early-stage teams. Previously: Airtasker, Vivian Health, Hatch.

Berty Bhuruth
Part Time
Advisory
Part Time
Advisory
Berty Bhuruth
Fractional Design and Product Lead

Helps clients define user-led product experiences and solve complex problems through thoughtful design. Previously: Honeywell, Canon.

Engagement

Custom

Tell us what you need and we will define the best approach based on your needs

Why Choose a Retainer?

Retainers give you a dedicated design partner working alongside your team week to week. It's a flexible model for businesses seeking ongoing senior capability without adding permanent headcount.

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At UntilNow, we run retainers in two modes: Design and Development for continuous product work across sprints, and Go to Market for ongoing brand stewardship.

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Both run as senior embedded partnerships, giving you the depth of a full design team without the cost of building one.

Retainer vs In-House Hires

A project delivers a defined outcome and ends. A full time hire adds permanent cost and a long onboarding.

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A retainer sits between the two, giving you senior, flexible capability that is always available without the commitment of headcount.

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In-House
Retainer

A senior design team on call

A senior team available as your priorities shift, without scoping a fresh engagement each time.

Momentum across continuous work

The same team carries the work forward across sprints and campaigns, no relaunch in between.

Scale support without hiring

Flex capacity up for a launch and back again when things settle, no recruitment cycle required.

Deep context that compounds

A team that learns your brand and product as if it were their own, built up over time.

Predictable monthly investment

A fixed monthly fee for ongoing capability, easier to budget than a salary plus overhead.

Two ways of working with us on Retainer

Design and Development

Continuous product design support: feature work, UI iteration, and design QA delivered across sprints.

SUPPORT

A senior design team embedded in your sprint cycles, working alongside product and engineering to ship features, iterate on UI, and run design QA across every release.


Ways of working

  • Embedded in your sprint cycles
  • Feature work, UI iteration, and design QA
  • Design system maintenance and evolution
  • Mentoring for in house designers
  • Pause or scale month to month

Go To Market

Ongoing brand stewardship: campaign design, content systems, and brand evolution as your business grows.

SUPPORT

A senior brand and creative team embedded in your marketing function, shaping campaigns, evolving the visual system, and producing content that carries the brand across every channel.

Ways of working

  • Embedded in your campaign cycles
  • Campaign design and content systems
  • Brand consistency across every channel
  • Partnership with your marketing team
  • Pause or scale month to month

Not sure which fits? Tell us where you're at and we'll shape the right engagement.

Let’s chat

What can we help you with?

Our goal is to help companies unlock great ideas and get them to market quickly.

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Business outcomes

An ongoing partner compounds in value as the team builds shared context over time.

An ongoing partner compounds in value as the team builds shared context over time.
Consistent design output across product and brand
Faster turnaround as the team builds deep familiarity with your work
A steady cadence of feature work, iteration, and design QA
Brand stewardship that keeps campaigns and content aligned
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suits your needs

Explore our various proven frameworks that guarantee results.
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UX/UI Audits

We don't audit to impress you. We audit to give your team a list they can ship. UntilNow's UX/UI audits combine heuristic evaluation, analytics review, and user behaviour data to surface the highest impact fixes, then deliver them as prioritised, scoped recommendations, not vague observations and screenshots.

Localisation and Translation

Most localised sites are translated, not localised. The difference shows. UntilNow runs website and product localisation as design, copy, and engineering in one engagement, with hreflang setup, CMS architecture, transcreation, and regional UX considerations built in from the start. Brand intact, locally credible, technically sound.

Concept Validation

A validation project's job is to make the team argue about the right things faster. UntilNow runs concept validation sprints designed to test ideas with real users, surface the questions worth answering, and produce shippable decisions, not pretty deliverables that sit in a Drive folder.

MVP Design and Build

A real MVP is the smallest version that can prove the bet. Most aren't. UntilNow builds production grade MVPs designed to test the idea with real users without becoming the technical debt you spend the next two years rebuilding. Strategy, design, and engineering from one team, with no code or code based on what fits the product, not what fits the agency.

AI Image Libraries

Generic AI imagery all looks the same and clashes with the brand system the moment it lands. UntilNow trains custom AI image libraries built around your visual identity, with curated style references, prompt frameworks, and governance rules so your team can generate on brand imagery on demand. Bespoke imagery, at the scale and speed AI makes possible, without the AI weirdness.

AI-Powered Creative

AI isn't replacing designers. It's giving good ones more leverage. UntilNow runs AI as part of a hybrid creative workflow, with brief, generation, curation, and craft handled by the same team. Faster turnarounds, more variants, and the same brand bar. No AI weirdness, no agentic everything theatre, just creative that earns its place.

Email Templates

Email is the most read brand channel most companies treat like a footnote. UntilNow designs and codes responsive email systems for marketing, lifecycle, and transactional flows, with branded templates, modular components, and ESP setup in one engagement. Built once, used by your team for years.

Packaging and Merchandise Design

Shelf is the most honest place to test a brand. UntilNow designs packaging that earns the sale, the second look, and the repeat. Structure, graphics, copy, finish, and production ready dielines designed together, with the same rigour we bring to digital.

Print Design

Digital is loud. Print is intentional. UntilNow designs print that earns its place in someone's hands, from annual reports and editorial books to brochures, packaging, and environmental graphics. We work with trusted production partners and pair print with the broader brand system, so what lands looks and feels like one considered whole.

Ebook and Report Design

The average gated whitepaper is read for 47 seconds. Most reports don't earn longer. UntilNow designs reports, ebooks, and whitepapers as proper publications, with structure, hierarchy, and information design built to hold attention past the cover. Annual reports, research, impact reports, and editorial style ebooks designed for marketing, comms, and corporate content teams.

Presentation Design

A great deck doesn't decorate the story. It sharpens it. UntilNow designs presentations as a strategic partner, not a slide polisher, with structure, narrative, and visual craft built together. Investor pitches, sales decks, conference keynotes, and branded template systems your team can run with for years.

Android App Development

UntilNow blends design precision with technical excellence to create mobile experiences that perform beautifully across devices. From strategy to Google Play launch, we help businesses transform ideas into powerful, high-performing Android applications.

iOS App Development

At UntilNow, we design and develop iOS applications that blend technical excellence with intuitive user experience. Our iOS app development team combines strategy, design, and engineering to create secure, scalable, and high-performing apps for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Whether you are building a new product or improving an existing one, we deliver apps that engage users and grow your business.

Website Design

At UntilNow, we design and build websites that do more than look good. They drive business results. Our approach blends strategy, UX and technical precision to create responsive, user-centred designs that engage audiences and scale with confidence. Whether you are launching your first site or reimagining an established brand, we design digital experiences that turn ideas into impact.

Digital Product Design

UntilNow combines strategy, research, and design to create experiences that feel effortless and perform powerfully. From early discovery to usability testing, we help brands design products that engage users and scale with success.

Brand Positioning

Most brands aren't unclear, they're unpositioned. UntilNow runs focused brand positioning engagements with founders, marketing leaders, and exec teams to define category frame, audience, and competitive difference, then translate the work into messaging, product, and go to market language your team can apply on Monday.

Webflow Development

UntilNow helps ambitious brands design and build fast, scalable, and conversion-focused websites on Webflow. We combine strategic UX, clean development, and design precision to create flexible, SEO-friendly sites that deliver measurable business results. From Figma to launch, our Webflow experts bring your ideas to life with clarity and craftsmanship.

UX/UI Design

We design intuitive digital experiences that connect aesthetics with performance. UntilNow’s team blends research, strategy, and design craft to turn ideas into functional, conversion-optimised interfaces that users love to interact with.

Tone of Voice

Paste your last three customer emails into a doc. Do they sound like the same brand? UntilNow develops tone of voice systems that pass the test, with voice principles, do's and don'ts, and worked examples your writers can actually use. We pair voice work with copywriting and product UX writing so the system holds across every surface, not just the homepage.

Social Media Design

UntilNow is a Sydney-based social media studio that helps brands cut through the noise. We craft scroll-stopping content, manage campaigns, and turn engagement into measurable growth. With data-led insights and platform-specific strategies, we help you connect, convert, and grow.

SEO Optimisation

SEO advice that ruins your home page is bad advice. UntilNow runs SEO inside the design system, not against it, blending technical audits, on page optimisation, content strategy, and Core Web Vitals work for brands that care how the site reads as well as how it ranks. We've done the work on our own SEO, the same approach we'll bring to yours.

No Code Dev

Need to ship something real without waiting for an engineering team? UntilNow builds production ready websites and web apps in Webflow, Framer, Bubble, and Airtable, with the engineering rigour to keep them fast, scalable, and easy for your team to own. Platform selection, architecture, and handover all handled in one engagement, so what you launch keeps working long after we're gone.

Motion Design

At UntilNow, we design motion that moves people. Our motion design studio in Australia blends storytelling, animation, and design to create visuals that express brand identity, enhance engagement, and communicate ideas with clarity and emotion. From product demos to brand films, we craft motion experiences that connect strategy with creativity.

AI Automation

Streamline workflows, reduce costs, and scale faster with intelligent automation designed for your business. UntilNow helps teams integrate AI solutions that work, from marketing automation to operations and data analytics.

Innovation Strategy

Innovation work shouldn't take a year and end in a slide deck. UntilNow runs focused innovation strategy engagements with founders, exec teams, and product leaders to identify the right opportunities, validate them with real users and real data, and design a roadmap that produces shippable outcomes. Strategy and prototypes from the same team, so the bet gets tested, not theorised.

Illustration Design

UntilNow's illustration studio crafts original, on-brand artwork that cuts through stock imagery and builds recognisable brand worlds. From icon systems to campaign illustration, we design visuals with real personality and purpose.

Design Systems

UntilNow designs and delivers production-ready design systems that unite designers, developers and AI tooling under one shared language. From foundations and tokens to Storybook documentation, we help teams ship consistent, accessible product faster.

Copywriting

UntilNow's writers partner with brand, product, and marketing teams to craft copy with a clear point of view. From brand messaging frameworks to long-form editorial and ad copy, we make sure what you say is worth hearing.

Messaging Frameworks

Most messaging problems aren't copywriting problems, they're clarity problems. UntilNow builds messaging frameworks that resolve the debate, with primary messages, pillar messages, proof points, and audience specific variations your team can apply across web, sales, product, and campaign work. One framework, no more reinventing the wheel on every brief.

Ad Creative

UntilNow helps brands cut through cluttered feeds with ads that mix strategy, craft, and performance thinking. From single assets to full campaigns, we deliver creative that earns attention and drives measurable action.

Brand Guidelines

Most brand books gather dust. UntilNow designs guidelines built to be used, from the strategic foundation through to logo systems, colour, typography, illustration, motion, and tone of voice, delivered as a static brand book, a digital brand portal, or both. We design guidelines as the starting point for rollout, not the deliverable that ends the project.

App Development

Bring your idea to life with UntilNow’s app development services in Australia. From mobile to web apps, our team partners with you to design and build digital products that inspire engagement and drive meaningful business growth. We combine strategy, design, and development to deliver clarity from concept to launch.

Brand Strategy

Most brand strategy decks die in a Drive folder. We design ours not to. UntilNow partners with founders, marketing leaders, and exec teams to define positioning, architecture, and messaging in formats built for execution, with sharp deliverables your team can act on Monday morning.

Brand Naming

A name is more than a word. It is the beginning of your brand story. At UntilNow, we help you create names that are distinctive, memorable, and strategically aligned with your business vision. From startups to rebrands, our brand naming services combine creativity, clarity, and strategy to ensure your name connects and endures.

Website Development

At UntilNow, we design and develop websites that combine strategy, creativity, and performance. Whether you’re launching a startup or scaling a growing brand, our team partners with you to craft digital experiences that connect, convert, and grow with your business. Every site is built for clarity, scalability, and long-term success.

Visual Identity

UntilNow’s visual identity agency shapes how brands are seen, felt, and remembered through clear systems of design, colour, and language. We partner with businesses to craft identities that express who they are, consistently and confidently across every medium.

User Research Agency

At UntilNow, we uncover how people think, feel, and behave to create digital experiences that truly connect. Our user research studio combines qualitative and quantitative insights to remove guesswork, reduce risk, and inform smarter design decisions. Through usability testing, audience analysis, and behavioural research, we help you build products that are not only functional but deeply human.

Let’s collaborate

Let’s chat
Mirvac
Bigger
Elevia
Carma
Cake
Prophero
Bigger
FLA
Kaiso
Cake
Flagship
Prophero
Handle
KindiCover
Prophero
Spriggy
Chris O'Brien
Tandem
Sven
Tandem
Flagship
Carma
Snowmelt
Alternaleaf
Who do we work with

Some of our clients

From early-stage startups to ambitious scaleups, we partner with bold teams bringing transformative ideas to life. Each collaboration reflects our passion for crafting thoughtful, impactful solutions—whether it’s building memorable brands, designing seamless digital experiences, or solving complex challenges with clarity and purpose. Together, we create work that drives progress and leaves a lasting impression.

Project overview

FAQs

What is a design retainer?
A design retainer is an ongoing arrangement where UntilNow provides continuous design capability at an agreed level of capacity, rather than scoping each piece of work separately.
What does a retainer cover?
Retainers cover continuous product design, including feature work, UI iteration, and design QA, as well as ongoing brand work such as campaign design, content systems, and brand evolution.
How is a retainer different from a project?
A project delivers a defined outcome and ends. A retainer gives you an ongoing partner and a steady flow of work as your priorities change week to week.
Can I plug in a single specialist or a full team?
Yes. Depending on your needs you can work with one embedded specialist or an embedded team across design and development. [VERIFY: confirm minimum and maximum retainer team configurations]
How is a retainer priced?
Retainers are priced against an agreed level of monthly capacity, so you get a predictable cost and a known level of output each cycle. [VERIFY: confirm whether retainers are sold by capacity, hours, or tiered packages]
How much capacity do I get each month?
Capacity is agreed upfront based on your roadmap and can be scaled up or down as needs change. [VERIFY: confirm standard capacity tiers or day allocations]
What is the minimum commitment?
Retainers usually run on a rolling monthly basis with an initial term to build context. [VERIFY: confirm minimum retainer term and notice period]
How quickly can the team start?
Once scope and cadence are agreed, the team can typically begin after a short onboarding period. [VERIFY: confirm typical retainer onboarding lead time]
What happens to unused capacity?
We agree how capacity rolls over or resets at the start of the engagement, so expectations are clear from the outset. [VERIFY: confirm rollover policy for unused capacity]
We have engineers, product managers, and marketers but no designers. Can you help?
Yes, that is one of the most common reasons teams bring us on. A retainer drops a full, cross functional design team into your business when you have product, engineering, and marketing covered but no design function, or only one designer who needs more capacity. You get the output of an in house team without the hiring, onboarding, or management overhead.
Is a design retainer the same as a design subscription?
A design subscription usually means a fixed monthly fee for a queue of smaller, mostly graphic tasks. A retainer with UntilNow is broader and more senior, an embedded partner across product and brand design rather than a task queue. If you want the predictability of a subscription with the depth of a senior team, a retainer gives you both.
Do you offer white label or outsourced design for agencies?
Yes. Agencies and studios can use a retainer as an outsourced design partner, working behind the scenes across product, web, and brand design. [VERIFY: confirm whether UntilNow takes on white label or agency to agency work, and under what terms]
Can I move between a retainer and a project?
Yes. Many clients combine the two, running defined projects alongside an ongoing retainer, or moving between them as their needs evolve.
How we do it

Startup pace

You want to move fast. So do we. We operate as a nimble, high-powered team working hand-in-hand with early-stage founders. We know your world and understand the tradeoffs. We help you to prioritise design tasks to have the greatest impact.

Shared tools and face-2-face interactions

Right from the project kick-off, we'll establish a working rhythm that matches the needs of your team using common tools like Figma and Slack.

Sydney-based, globally powered

We have built an incredible network of incredibly talented designers and thinkers - both locally and globally. Each person in team is hand-selected based on expertise and project chemistry to bring your product vision to life.

Business Goals

We’re allergic to agency overhead, bureaucracy, and process. We evaluate our work based on business results, not industry awards. We’re proud of the growth we’ve helped create.

Highly collaborative

Expect stand-ups, shared tools, workshops and ceremonies to keep you in the loop. We’ll involve you as much as you’d like to be involved this also extends towards any advisors, or others who you would like to bring along on the journey.


Strategy with execution

Exploring the right questions is as important speed of delivery.  We seek to understand the problem you aim to solve, and how design is best leverage to boost business impact. This informs how we build the product now to efficiently achieve your future goals.

Case Studies

Arkeus
Arkeus
A website built with the same precision as the technology it sells.
Deeligence
Deeligence
Harnessing AI to streamline how law firms provide due diligence.
Sven
Sven
Taking the pain out of temporary work

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