Cover the gap now.
Keep the standard.
You're hiring a designer. The work is already here. We extend your studio until the seat is filled, or become the flexible alternative to a hire you're not certain you need.
A good designer takes three to six months to find, and then you carry a fixed cost through every quiet month that follows. The client work in front of you doesn't have that long to wait.
We step in with senior led capacity the moment you need it and step back when you don't. No onboarding tax, no benefits, no seat to keep warm in February. You keep the client relationship, the creative standard, and the credit.
Two ways we help
Bridge the hire
Senior capacity now, while you recruit. Hand off cleanly when your designer starts.
Skip the hire
A flexible pod that scales with demand, and doesn't sit idle when it drops.
Nearshore · U.S. hours
A nearshore team on U.S. business hours, the cost profile of nearshore with the feel of a local studio.
Tell us about the open role.
We'll come back with a shape that fits, bridge or alternative, and an honest read on whether we're the right fit for your clients.
The work doesn't wait for the hire.
You can spend weeks reviewing portfolios, interviewing candidates, negotiating compensation, and waiting through notice periods.
Your clients, unfortunately, are still expecting the work on Thursday.
That creates an uncomfortable gap: too much work for the team you have today, but not enough certainty to rush into another permanent hire. Bainbridge Studio is designed for that gap. We give agencies additional professional design capacity that works alongside their existing team, for a launch, a busy quarter, an open position, or for as long as the workload justifies it.
Keep recruiting if you want to. You don't have to overload the team while you do it.
There are plenty of reasons to need another designer. Not all of them justify another employee.
You're actively hiring
Your designer left, the job is posted, and finding the right replacement is taking longer than expected. We provide capacity while you run the search properly instead of hiring under pressure.
A client just expanded the scope
A good problem to have, until the same team is expected to produce 40% more work. Add capacity around the account without permanently changing your cost base.
You won a new account
Start delivering while you determine what the long term staffing model should look like.
Your senior designers are doing production work
Your best people should be directing, concepting, and solving difficult creative problems, not spending half the week resizing layouts and building endless campaign variations.
Workload comes in waves
If your studio moves between extremely busy periods and quieter months, permanent headcount isn't always the most efficient answer.
Someone is on leave
Add temporary capacity without restructuring the rest of the department.
You're pitching something big
Give the core team breathing room while an important pitch, rebrand, launch, or campaign absorbs more senior attention.
You don't want another full time hire yet
Increase delivery capacity before increasing fixed payroll.
Not another employee. Not another random freelancer.
Bainbridge sits between permanent headcount and ad hoc freelance support.
| Bainbridge Studio | Full time hire | Freelance network | Traditional outsourcing | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Permanent payroll commitment | High | None | None | |
| Recruitment required | Yes | Repeatedly | No | |
| Works with your existing team | Yes | Sometimes | Usually separate | |
| Capacity can flex | Low | High | Medium | |
| Consistent team | Yes | Variable | Variable | |
| Suitable for ongoing agency work | Yes | Sometimes | Sometimes | |
| White label friendly | N/A | Sometimes | Sometimes | |
| Integrated into your workflow | Yes | Varies | Rarely |
Bainbridge Studio
- Permanent payroll commitment
- Recruitment required
- Works with your existing team
- Capacity can flex
- Consistent team
- Suitable for ongoing agency work
- White label friendly
- Integrated into your workflow
Full time hire
- Permanent payroll commitment
- High
- Recruitment required
- Yes
- Works with your existing team
- Yes
- Capacity can flex
- Low
- Consistent team
- Yes
- Suitable for ongoing agency work
- Yes
- White label friendly
- N/A
- Integrated into your workflow
- Yes
Freelance network
- Permanent payroll commitment
- None
- Recruitment required
- Repeatedly
- Works with your existing team
- Sometimes
- Capacity can flex
- High
- Consistent team
- Variable
- Suitable for ongoing agency work
- Sometimes
- White label friendly
- Sometimes
- Integrated into your workflow
- Varies
Traditional outsourcing
- Permanent payroll commitment
- None
- Recruitment required
- No
- Works with your existing team
- Usually separate
- Capacity can flex
- Medium
- Consistent team
- Variable
- Suitable for ongoing agency work
- Sometimes
- White label friendly
- Sometimes
- Integrated into your workflow
- Rarely
The objective isn't to replace your internal team. It's to make that team more scalable.
Your clients don't need another agency. Your team needs more capacity.
We can operate behind the scenes as an extension of your existing design team.
Your account structure stays intact. Your creative direction stays intact. Your client relationships stay yours.
Our designers work from your briefs, your brand systems, your templates, and your established creative direction. When appropriate, they can also collaborate directly with your creative and account teams inside the tools you already use.
We adapt to your workflow
- Figma
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Slack / Teams
- Project management
- Shared drives
- Your existing workflow
Give your senior team back the work only they can do.
Bainbridge can take on both design execution and more involved creative assignments, depending on what your team needs.
Brand & identity
- Brand system extensions
- Identity applications
- Brand guideline production
- Sales and marketing collateral
- Brand rollouts
- Template systems
Campaign creative
- Campaign asset production
- Digital advertising
- Paid social creative
- Email graphics
- Landing page design
- Campaign variations and adaptations
Digital
- Website design
- Landing pages
- UI design support
- Responsive layouts
- Design systems
- Web graphics and assets
Presentations
- Pitch decks
- New business presentations
- Sales decks
- Keynote and PowerPoint design
- Template systems
- Presentation cleanup and production
Content & social
- Social media design
- Editorial layouts
- Infographics
- Reports
- Branded content
- Reusable content systems
Production
- Resizing and adaptation
- Versioning
- Localization
- File preparation
- Template population
- Large volume creative production
Have something less conventional? Send it over. If it's within our capabilities, we'll tell you. If it isn't, we'll tell you that too.
A hiring gap does not always need to be filled by the same level of designer.
Agency work has context. A designer needs to understand what is fixed, what can change, what the creative director is actually asking for, what the client tends to reject, and when something is good enough to ship.
Bainbridge can provide senior, mid level, or entry level designers depending on the gap. One agency may need senior capacity on a difficult account. Another may need several entry level designers to absorb a large amount of structured production. A third may need a blended team.
Assignments can be matched to the appropriate level, with senior direction and review added where the work benefits from it.
Match the designer level to the work, then adjust the mix as the workload changes.
A simpler way to add design capacity.
Show us what you need
Tell us about your agency, workload, existing team, type of work, and the capacity gap you're trying to fill.
We define the right setup
Some agencies need one designer who becomes deeply familiar with their accounts. Others need access to a broader mix of design skills. We structure the engagement around the work rather than forcing every agency into the same model.
We learn your system
We get familiar with your brand standards, templates, client expectations, file organization, and creative workflow.
Work starts flowing
Send assignments through the agreed workflow. Your team maintains creative control while Bainbridge adds execution capacity.
Adjust as the workload changes
If the hiring gap closes, the campaign ends, or the workload changes, your design capacity can change with it.
The relationship can last three months or three years. It should last because it's useful, not because you're locked into it.
A few ways agencies use Bainbridge.
Your mid level designer leaves on Friday.
Recruiting estimates an 8 to 12 week search. Two major accounts still have weekly deliverables. Instead of dividing the departed designer's workload across an already busy team, Bainbridge absorbs a defined portion of the production and design work while you recruit. When the new employee starts, you can decide whether to reduce external capacity or keep it available for overflow.
You win more work before you hire for it.
The contract begins next month, but building a permanent team before winning the account would have been irresponsible. Bainbridge helps provide the initial capacity so the agency can start delivering while management determines the appropriate long term staffing level.
Your expensive people are doing inexpensive work.
Creative directors and senior designers are spending too much time adapting layouts, preparing decks, and producing routine campaign assets because there isn't anyone else available. Move appropriate execution work downstream while keeping creative direction with the internal senior team.
January needs six designers. April needs four. September needs seven.
A permanently staffed team sized for the peak can become expensive during slower periods. A core internal team supported by flexible external capacity can make the agency's production model more resilient.
We understand the awkward parts of agency work.
Deadlines move.
We work within a real production environment rather than pretending every project follows a perfect timeline.
Feedback arrives in rounds.
Revision is part of design work.
Different clients require different styles.
Bainbridge follows the client's visual language instead of imposing one house style across every assignment.
Files need to be usable by someone else.
Good production standards and organized working files matter.
Sometimes you're not allowed to show the work.
Agency relationships can require discretion and white label delivery.
The creative director remains the creative director.
We are there to increase your team's capacity, not create another layer of politics around the work.
Your agency. Your client. Your relationship.
For agencies, Bainbridge can work quietly behind the scenes.
We don't need credit on the work. We don't need to turn the project into a case study. And we don't need to insert ourselves between your agency and its clients.
When an engagement requires discretion, the relationship can remain white label.
The best outcome is often that the client never realizes your team needed extra help.
Capacity only helps if the work is good.
Adding five mediocre designers to a busy creative department doesn't solve a capacity problem. It creates a management problem.
The value of an external design partner is not simply the number of hours available. It is how much useful work can move through the team without creating disproportionate briefing, correction, and supervision overhead.
Bainbridge's goal is to become easier to work with over time as we learn your brands, clients, standards, and preferences.
Context
Learn the system before redesigning it.
Judgment
Know when to follow the brief exactly, and when something deserves a question.
Craft
The final 10% is usually what makes work feel professionally finished.
Instead of asking "Should we hire another designer?" ask "How much design capacity do we actually need?"
Those are not always the same question.
A full time employee is an excellent investment when there is stable, long term demand for that role. But if the requirement is driven by a temporary vacancy, one account, uncertain growth, or recurring workload spikes, flexible capacity can be the more rational first step.
You can always hire later. The difference is that you get to make that decision based on actual workload rather than today's emergency.
Probably a good fit if…
- You already have an established creative team.
- You care about design quality.
- You need additional execution capacity.
- You want your internal creative leaders focused on higher value work.
- You have more work than your existing team should reasonably absorb.
- You're hiring but don't want to rush the decision.
- Your workload changes significantly throughout the year.
- You want a partner who can learn your systems instead of starting from zero on every project.
Probably not the right fit if…
- You're simply looking for the absolute lowest cost production available.
- You want to outsource creative responsibility entirely without providing direction.
- Every assignment will be a one off with no opportunity for us to learn your workflow.
- You expect unlimited work for a fixed fee.
What if the thing you need isn't another employee?
Show us the design workload you're trying to solve.
We'll look at the type of work, volume, seniority, and workflow, and help you determine whether Bainbridge could realistically fill the gap. No generic outsourcing pitch. Just a conversation about what your team needs to get the work done.
For creative, branding, digital, and marketing agencies needing additional design capacity.