Independent studio — brand, product, campaign
Drift Grain works with small teams carrying a big launch: a brand that has outgrown its first identity, an interface that needs to be designed properly, a season of campaign work that has to ship on schedule.
Briefs are reviewed the week they arrive, and we reply either way — with a shape for the work, or with what we would need to make it worth starting.
01 — What we do
Most projects start in one lane and borrow from a second. Every engagement ends with editable source files, a written rationale and a handover session — not a slide deck of mood boards.
Positioning, naming direction and a visual system that holds up across a website, a deck, a shopfront and a form letter. Built to be used by people who are not designers.
Interface design for teams shipping a first version or repairing a second. We design against real content and real states, then stay close while it is built.
A season of work planned as one set: the hero idea, the sizes it has to live in, and the templates your team can keep filling once the launch week is over.
Printed and physical work where the craft is in the detail: grids that survive long copy, and artwork prepared correctly for the people who will actually produce it.
02 — How we work
The same two designers stay on your project from the first call to handover. You see work in progress at the end of every stage, and nothing moves forward until the stage before it is signed off.
Stage one
A working session on the audience, the constraints and the decision the work has to make easier. We write the brief back to you before anything is designed.
Typically one week
Stage two
Two distinct directions, shown in context rather than as abstractions. You pick one and we keep the useful parts of the other on the record.
Two to three weeks
Stage three
The chosen direction extended across every surface the project needs, with real copy, real images and the awkward edge cases designed rather than avoided.
Three to six weeks
Stage four
Source files, a written guide, a recorded walkthrough and a standing window for questions while your team puts the work into use.
One week, then open
03 — Selected work
A short index rather than a full portfolio. If your project resembles one of these, say so in your brief and we will walk you through the whole file in a call.
Brand systemSpeciality food producer
A regional preserves maker moving from a farmers' market table into stockists. The old label was hand-made and could not scale to twelve product lines, so we built a system where the range reads as one family and a new flavour takes an afternoon to art-direct.
Product & webScheduling tool for clinics
A first product built by two engineers who had never worked with a designer. We rebuilt the information architecture around the one screen staff use every morning, designed the empty and error states properly, and handed over a component library their front-end matched one-to-one.
CampaignIndependent cinema group
One season, four venues and a programme that changes weekly. Instead of designing forty posters we designed a typographic frame that any programmer can fill from a spreadsheet, plus the hero artwork for the season's opening fortnight.
04 — Engagements
Choose the shape that matches where your project actually is. If you are unsure, describe the problem in your brief and we will recommend one — including the smaller option when that is the honest answer.
Sprint
Two weeks · fixed scope
For a decision that is stuck. A concentrated look at one problem — a homepage, a single flow, a naming direction — with a recommendation you can act on immediately.
Build
Six to twelve weeks · staged
The main way we work. The full four stages on a defined project, billed per stage so you can stop at a natural boundary rather than mid-design.
Retainer
Monthly · rolling
For teams who have a system already and need a steady hand on it. A set number of studio days each month, planned a fortnight ahead so the work is never rushed.
Every engagement is quoted as a fixed fee per stage after the brief call, so you approve a number before the stage begins. We do not bill by the hour.
05 — Questions
The things clients ask us on the first call, answered here so the call can be about your project instead.
The two studio designers who join your first call stay on the project to handover. When a project needs a specialist — a copywriter, an illustrator, a front-end developer — we bring in someone we have worked with before, introduce them to you, and keep them inside our stages rather than sub-contracting the project out.
Because we quote per stage, a change is handled at the next stage boundary: we write down what has changed, what it displaces and what it costs, and you approve it before we start. Small adjustments inside an agreed stage are simply part of the work. We do not issue surprise invoices.
It usually makes the work better. In that case we plan the engagement around your designer from stage one — they attend the direction reviews, we build the system to be extended by them, and the handover is a working session rather than a file transfer. Several of our retainers exist to support one in-house designer.
Editable source files for everything we make, organised and named, plus fonts and licence details, export-ready artwork, a written guide covering the decisions and rules, and a recorded walkthrough. You own the final work outright once the engagement is settled — there is no ongoing licence on your own brand.
Sprints can often start within a fortnight. A full Build usually starts four to six weeks out, because we only run two at a time. If your date is fixed — a launch, a season, a trade show — tell us the date in your brief and we will say plainly whether it is realistic.
One person who can make decisions, an hour for the framing session, and whatever already exists: current files, the copy you have, any research, and the list of things that are genuinely not up for change. Missing material is fine — unclear ownership of the decision is the thing that slows projects down.
06 — Start a brief
A few lines is enough to begin. We read every brief ourselves and reply with either a shape for the work or an honest note about why we are not the right studio for it.