01
Every piece looks like a different company.
Your deck, your site and your one-pager were made by three people who never spoke. Investors register that before they can name it.
Fractional creative direction
Your brand needs a creative director. Not a full-time one.
I built a brand from nothing to a $400M company, grew the design team from one person to ten, and automated the production that was eating them alive. Now I do that job for companies not ready to hire it outright.
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Brand · Campaign · Executive comms · Film · AI production
Fifteen years, one standard
The problem
Nobody owns the decisions.
Three symptoms, one cause. You will recognise at least two of them.
02
You are the creative director.
Approving layouts at eleven at night because nobody else can say yes. That is not your job, and doing it is slowing down the parts that are.
03
The agency bills $40,000 and asks what you want.
You are paying for execution and they are handing back the hard part. The thinking was the thing you needed.
What this role is worth
$0M
Company valuation reached while I owned the brand. Founding creative hire, identity built from zero in 2021, carried through five rounds of funding. That is the job, not a line on a deck.
What I take on
Three things, and they compound.
01 / Brand
Brand development
Positioning, naming, identity, voice, and the system that keeps it intact after I leave. The deliverable is never a logo in a folder. It is a set of rules specific enough that two people who have never met make the same call.
02 / Design
Design services
Decks, websites, campaigns, pitch material, launch collateral, social. Built on a template system, so the first piece costs what it costs and the hundredth costs almost nothing. That is the difference between a brand you can afford to use and one that sits in a drive.
03 / AI
Gen AI pipelines & apps
Image and video pipelines, agent chains, and the internal tools around them. I built the production stack that let a ten person team ship at agency volume. This is not a demo. It runs in production and it has a cost line you can point at.
The record
I have done this at the scale you are trying to reach.
0 → 1
Founding creative hire. Enterprise brand built from nothing.
1 → 10+
Design function grown from one person to a team.
$400M
Valuation reached, through five rounds of funding.
$139K
Annual production cost removed by the AI pipeline.
What changes
A creative director is not a designer who charges more.
The job is judgment. Deciding what the brand is, holding the line when it drifts, and making sure the hundredth piece looks like it came from the same company as the first. Most companies buy execution, then wonder why the output never adds up.
In-house hire
$180k+
Base salary before equity, benefits, and the three months it takes to find
the right person.
Agency retainer
$15–30k/mo
A team you do not pick, a strategist you meet once, and a junior doing the
actual work.
Fractional, with me
$4,500/mo
One senior person who makes the calls, does the work, and leaves you a system
your team can run without me.
What it costs
Two ways to work together.
Project
$2,500 and up
A defined piece of work with a start and an end. Priced on scope, quoted
before anything begins.
- An identity, a site, a deck system, a campaign, or a pipeline build
- Fixed price agreed up front, no hourly billing
- Two revision rounds built in
- You keep the working files and the system
Most take this
Fractional CD
$4,500 /month
One brand. Roughly twenty hours a month of senior creative direction, and
the hands to execute it.
- I own the creative decisions for your brand
- Weekly working session, async the rest of the week
- Design work included, not quoted separately
- Brand system built and maintained as we go
- Your team and vendors take direction from me, not from you
Fractional CD+
$8,000 /month
Multiple brands, a launch, or a quarter where the volume is genuinely
heavy. Roughly forty hours a month.
- Everything in Fractional CD
- Multi-brand or multi-product coverage
- Launch and campaign ownership end to end
- AI production pipeline built for your workflow
- Priority turnaround
Three month minimum on retainers, then month to month · Thirty days notice · Every engagement starts with a free scope call
Who this fits
Three situations I keep seeing.
Funded startups
You raised, you have a deadline, and the brand was made in a weekend eighteen months ago. It needs to look like the company you just told investors you were. I have done exactly this, from the inside, through five rounds.
Small businesses
The business works. The brand drifted, because every piece was made by whoever was free that week. You do not need a rebrand so much as someone to decide, and then hold it.
Agencies
More work than creative leadership. I plug in as senior director on your accounts, white label, and you do not carry the headcount between pitches.
Scope it
Tell me what you are trying to do.
Two minutes. I read every one myself and reply within one business day, with either a scope and a price, or an honest note that I am not the right fit.
Got it.
I will read it properly and reply within one business day. If it is urgent, email me directly.
Straight answers
The questions I actually get.
What does a fractional creative director actually do day to day?
I make the creative decisions and I do enough of the work to prove them. In a normal week that is one working session with you, direction on whatever is in flight, and hands-on design on the pieces that matter most. Your contractors take direction from me instead of from you, which is usually the part that gives founders their week back.
How is this different from hiring an agency?
An agency sells you a team you did not pick, led by a strategist you meet at kickoff and never again. You get one senior person, and I am the same person in the scope call, the working session and the file. Smaller scope, better decisions, a third of the cost.
What if I only need one thing built?
Take the project price. Not everything needs a retainer, and I will tell you when yours does not. A fair number of retainers start as one project that went well.
Do you work with pre-revenue companies?
Yes, and the project tier exists for exactly that. If the budget is genuinely not there yet, say so in the form. I would rather point you at what to do yourself than sell you something you cannot carry.
What happens when the engagement ends?
You keep everything. Working files, templates, the brand system, the pipelines, and the documentation that explains how to run it. The goal is that your team holds the line without me, which is why I build systems rather than one-off assets.
Is the AI work real, or is it a demo?
Real. It runs in production and it removed $139,000 a year in outside production cost at my last company. The case study walks through the architecture, including the parts that did not work.
Next step
Start with a scope call.
Thirty minutes, no deck. You describe the situation, I tell you what I would do and what it would cost. If I am not the right fit, I will say so.