Verity for design agencies
Design work is priced in rounds and delivered in as many as it takes. Verity counts the rounds, records what was licensed and costs the pitch.
Verity runs the studio. Design tools and asset storage stay where they are.
Verity / Studio
LiveActive projects
24
Rounds over allowance
31 deliverables
Assets unlicensed
18
Pitch effort
460 hours
Needs attention
Illustrative figures. Verity shows your own studio in this shape.
How the business runs
A design agency quotes a project with an assumed number of revision rounds and then delivers as many as it takes to get an approval. Every round beyond the allowance is unbilled creative effort, and it is given because the alternative is an argument about something subjective. Thirty-one deliverables past allowance is roughly two hundred and ten hours of a studio’s capacity.
The second characteristic is licensing. Design work incorporates fonts, stock and third-party assets under licences with defined scope, and work regularly ends up used beyond that scope. Eighteen assets in use beyond their licence is a liability the agency created on the client’s behalf.
The third is speculative pitching. Studios produce real creative work to win projects, and four hundred and sixty hours of pitch effort against two wins is a cost that never appears against the projects it produced.
The fourth is handover. A project is not finished until working files, assets and licences reach the client, and unhanded-over projects hold final payments.
The fifth is that capacity is people and creative work is not interchangeable across them.
Verity counts rounds, records licences and their scope, costs the pitch and tracks handover to closure.
What Verity calls these things
What gets in the way
Design agency difficulties come from an approval process with no natural end and a fee that assumed one.
Revision rounds exceed the allowance uncounted
The fourth round happens because arguing about it is worse than doing it, and the effort disappears.
In Verity Rounds are counted per deliverable against the agreed allowance, so exceeding it raises a decision.
Licences are exceeded on the client’s behalf
Fonts, stock and third-party assets are used beyond the scope their licence covers.
In Verity Licences and their scope are recorded against the asset and the project, so exceedance is visible.
Pitch effort is never costed
Real creative work is produced speculatively and does not appear against the projects it wins.
In Verity Pitches are work with recorded effort, compared against the projects they produced.
Handover holds final payment
Working files, assets and licences are delivered when someone remembers, and the final invoice waits.
In Verity Handover is a checklist with an owner, tracked against the payment it releases.
Approvers multiply
A deliverable is approved by one stakeholder and reopened by another, producing rounds nobody agreed.
In Verity Approvers are recorded per deliverable, so an unagreed approver becomes a scope conversation.
Capacity is not interchangeable
Creative work is allocated to whoever is free rather than to whoever suits it, and rework follows.
In Verity Designers carry skills and current load, so allocation matches capability as well as availability.
The complete system
One system across rounds, licences, pitching and handover.
Work
Each deliverable is work with a client, an agreed round allowance, recorded rounds, effort and an approval state.
Why it matters here The round is the unit of pricing and the unit of overrun.
In practice Thirty-one deliverables past allowance, quantified in hours.
Records
Assets carry their licence, scope, expiry and the projects they are used in.
Why it matters here A licence exceeded on a client project is a liability the agency created.
In practice Eighteen assets in use beyond their licensed scope.
Workflows
Scope changes, approvals, additional rounds and handover move through defined steps with recorded decisions.
Why it matters here Approval is subjective and needs a recorded approver to have any boundary.
In practice A deliverable approved by a stakeholder and reopened by another, raised as scope.
People
Staff carry skills, availability and current load, with effort recorded against deliverables and pitches.
Why it matters here Creative capacity is not interchangeable and mismatched allocation produces rework.
In practice Allocation matched to capability rather than to whoever is free.
Relationships
Clients carry their projects, agreed allowances, approvers, revision behaviour and balances.
Why it matters here Revision behaviour is a client attribute and belongs in the next quote.
In practice A client averaging five rounds against a three-round allowance.
Suppliers
External contributors carry their engagements, costs, licences granted and reliability.
Why it matters here Commissioned work carries its own licensing scope that must reach the client.
In practice Commissioned illustration licence scope recorded and handed over.
Reports and analytics
Rounds against allowance, unbilled revision effort, licence exposure, pitch cost against wins, capacity and project margin come from the records.
Why it matters here A studio’s margin is decided by rounds and pitching, and neither is usually counted.
In practice Unbilled revision effort by client and by quarter.
Verity AI
Verity AI answers from your own project, round, asset and pitch records, respects permissions, and can create assigned follow-ups.
Why it matters here The valuable questions are about rounds consumed and licences exceeded.
In practice "Which deliverables are past their round allowance?" returns thirty-one with the effort quantified.
Communication
Feedback, approvals and change requests attach to the deliverable and round they concern.
Why it matters here Feedback scattered across email is why the next round misses something and becomes another round.
In practice All feedback for a round in one place before the revision starts.
Control
One permission model and one audit trail, with additional rounds and licence purchases recorded.
Why it matters here Both decisions are made by producers under deadline.
In practice An additional round approved with its cost recorded against the client.
Orders
Project fees, additional round charges and licence purchases are recorded against the project.
Why it matters here Licence cost and additional rounds are the two recoverable items most often absorbed.
In practice Licence cost recovered against the project that required it.
Locations
Teams roll into the agency with projects, capacity and reporting following the same structure.
Why it matters here Round consumption and margin vary by team and discipline.
In practice Rounds per deliverable by team and project type.
Work in motion
These already happen. Counted, the studio stops giving away its capacity.
Naming the approvers at the start is what gives a subjective process a boundary.
Consolidating feedback before revising is what keeps the round count from doubling.
A licence exceeded is a liability created on the client’s behalf and rarely noticed until it matters.
Speculative creative work is real cost and is almost never set against what it produced.
Unhanded-over projects hold final payments and stay open in everyone’s head.
Verity AI
Verity AI reads the same project, round, asset and pitch records the studio creates as it works. It answers across projects, respects permissions, and can turn an answer into scope decisions.
Verity / Ask
Verity AI only returns what the person asking has permission to see.
Without chasing
Each runs from the studio’s own records at the point the condition is met.
When
A round is submitted
When
An asset is used beyond its licence scope
When
A pitch concludes
When
A project completes
When
A deliverable is reopened by a new approver
What you can understand
Rounds, licences and pitch cost from the work itself.
Verity records the studio. Design tools and asset storage continue as they are.
One system, different ways of seeing it
Everyone works from the same records.
Founder
Where is the studio giving work away?
Rounds against allowance, unbilled revision effort, pitch cost against wins, project margin.
Producer
What is over and what is outstanding?
Round counts, feedback consolidation, licences, handover checklists, capacity.
Designer
What am I working on and against what feedback?
Assigned deliverables, consolidated feedback, round position, assets and licences.
Where it is used
Rounds counted per deliverable against the agreed allowance, so a fourth round is a decision rather than a habit.
Fonts, stock and commissioned assets recorded with their licence scope, so usage beyond it is visible before it matters.
All feedback on a round in one place before revision starts, which is what keeps a round from becoming two.
Speculative creative effort recorded and compared against the projects it won.
Files, assets, licences and guidelines as a checklist tracked against the final payment it releases.
Approvers named per deliverable, so a deliverable reopened by someone new is a scope conversation.
Designers carrying skills and load, so work is matched rather than assigned to whoever is free.
Getting there
Design tools, asset storage and accounting continue and are mapped during implementation. Clients, active projects with allowances, asset licences and pitches in progress are brought across.
Implementation runs about four weeks: discovery and mapping, configuration, migration, then an ongoing operations partnership.
Questions
Verity AI answers questions from your own project, round, asset and pitch records: which deliverables are past their round allowance, which assets are used beyond licence, what pitching cost against what it won, which clients consume the most rounds. Each answer can become a scope decision.
Because approval is subjective and rounds have no natural end, while the fee assumed a number. Counting them per deliverable is what turns a fourth round from an absorbed cost into a decision that can be charged or deliberately given.
Fonts, stock and commissioned assets carry licences with a defined scope. Work regularly ends up used beyond it, which is a liability created on the client’s behalf — visible only if the scope is recorded against the project.
Pitches are work with recorded effort and third-party cost, compared against the projects they won. Speculative creative work is real studio capacity and is almost never set against what it produced.
A project is not finished until working files, assets and licences reach the client, and unhanded-over projects hold final payments while staying open in everyone’s head.
Approvers are named per deliverable at setup, so a deliverable reopened by a stakeholder nobody agreed becomes a scope conversation rather than another free round.
No. Design software and asset storage continue and are mapped during implementation. Verity holds projects, rounds, licences, pitches, handover and the commercial record.
About four weeks: discovery and mapping of project types, round allowances and licensing practice, configuration, migration of clients and live projects, then an ongoing operations partnership.
It is where studio capacity goes and almost nobody has the number. Tell us how projects are scoped today.