The MSN Method · Issue Nº 04
How we
ship in 14 days.
A five-step async workflow where senior designers touch every artefact — from the Monday brief to the Friday handoff. No middle managers, no padded timelines, no junior hand-offs.
Plate 04.01 — Brief workshop, MSN Studio, Austin HQ. Photographed by Sofia P., 2024.
The five-step workflow
Brief → Strategy → Design → Motion → Ship.
Every engagement moves through the same five gates. Each gate has a named owner, a fixed day-count and a tangible artefact you can review. Nothing is hidden behind a project manager's status deck.
-
Day 1 — Mon
Brief
Owner Sofia P. — Creative Director
A 60-minute async kickoff: positioning, audience, competitors, the three deliverables you actually need. You leave the call with a one-page brief and a fixed quote — no scope creep, no surprise invoices.
- One-page brief in Notion
- Fixed scope + line-item quote
- Slack channel with the full senior pod
-
Day 2–3 — Tue → Wed
Strategy
Owner Markos N. — Founder & Brand Lead
Two working days of positioning, naming checks, moodboards and a verbal direction in Loom. You sign off on the strategic north star before a single pixel is pushed. The direction comes with reference boards, not vague adjectives.
- Verbal direction (Loom, 8–12 min)
- Moodboards + reference board in Figma
- One-paragraph strategic north star
-
Day 4–9 — Thu → week 2 Tue
Design
Owner Senior brand designer + creative director review
Six working days of execution: logo, type system, colour, components, photography art-direction, social templates. One senior designer owns the file end-to-end; the CD reviews at two internal gates. You see work every 48 hours, not at the end.
- Identity system in Figma
- Component library (logo, type, colour)
- Photography art-direction brief
- Social + launch templates
-
Day 10–12 — Wed → Fri
Motion
Owner In-house motion team (no freelancers)
Two in-house motion artists translate the identity into a 6–10 second logo sting, a launch reel and three social loops. Because motion lives in-house, the timing is locked to the design gates — no third-party waiting on deliverables.
- Logo sting (6–10s, 4K + WebM)
- Launch reel (15–30s)
- 3 social loops (9:16 + 1:1)
-
Day 13–14 — Mon → Tue
Ship
Owner Webflow dev + creative director
The Webflow team publishes your landing page, exports the Figma library, packages the brand guidelines PDF and hands over a Notion playbook. You walk away with a system, not a folder of files.
- Live Webflow landing page
- Figma library (transferable to Framer)
- Brand guidelines PDF (40+ pages)
- Notion playbook + handover doc
A note from the studio
“An agency hires twenty account managers to shield the client from the work. We do the opposite — we hire four senior designers and put them on the call. The process is just the scaffolding we built so they can do that every week.”
Proof, not promise
The 14-day claim, on the record.
On-time delivery across 1,180+ tracked projects since 2014.
Average identity package shipped — 2.6× faster than the agency median.
Of clients return for a second project within 12 months.
Net Promoter Score across 2023–2025 client surveys.
Featured in Awwwards Site of the Day (11 wins), FWA (4 wins) and Brand New's 2023 Noted Identity Programs list.
Senior studio vs. traditional agency
The comparison most buyers make in private.
When a founder asks "why not just hire a 30-person agency?", these are the four dimensions that actually decide the answer.
Trusted by teams at
Linear · Vercel · Mercury · Ramp · 47 Y Combinator-backed companies
30 minutes · no slides · no pitch deck
Start with a discovery call.
Ship in 14 days.
Bring a half-formed brief, a competitor you admire, or a deck that needs a second life. We'll come back with a fixed scope, a line-item quote and a start date — usually within 48 hours of the call.
- Fixed scope from $4,800 · full visual identity system
- Senior designer on the call · not an account manager
- Booking in 48h · delivery in 14 business days
Prefer email? [email protected] · or call +1 (512) 555-0184