AI Studio
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Stacks AI Studio / Branding and Design Studios
AI for Branding and Design Studios
"I feel behind on AI, and there is no chance I can catch up." If that is the sentence in your head, you are exactly who I work with. I am not selling software or theory-based advice. I run my own ten person managed services business on Claude, I know the value it adds every week, and now I help owners do the same inside branding and design studios like yours: your team trained, jobs automated, hours saved. Saying yes to starting puts you ahead of many of your competitors.
Experience, Not Theory
That is our first four automations at Stacks, across a ten person team. We took on more clients, and gross margin went from 26% to 56% in twelve months. AI was not the only driver. It was the biggest one. It also set a new standard for what my team sends out: the same bar for research, formatting, and finish on everything that leaves the building, no shortcuts.
Casey Templeton, Founder of Stacks. Nashville.
"In one week I went from a two-hour session with Casey to a brand new marketing site and firing the marketing firm I'd used for two years. If Casey wants to work with you, don't be a dummy. Just do it."
The Week
Your Week. I Know It.
Five jobs nobody bills for. This is the work an automation goes after first.
Discovery runs three hours and fills a notebook. The brief that comes out of it takes two more days.
A new project needs a proposal by Friday. Last year's SOW gets opened and edited by hand.
Clients call to ask where things stand. The update gets written at nine at night.
Round four arrives and nobody called it out. The extra work gets absorbed instead of written up.
Brand guidelines are due at handoff. The usage rules get written after the project is over.
When margin is that thin, every hour spent writing and chasing comes straight out of it.
Source: Design Week, December 2025.
The First Step
Two Sessions. Two Hours Each.
For most branding and design studios, this is the first step. Homework first, then two sessions, two hours each. In person if you are near Nashville, or over Zoom. $1,950.
For the math: one person at $25 an hour who gets two hours a week back is worth about $2,600 a year. If the first automation does that for one employee, it pays for itself with room to spare. And if after our first session you do not see a job worth automating, you pay nothing.
An automation is a repeated piece of work you teach Claude once. Your team runs it every day, you own it and tune it, and it carries the work to 80 percent so your people finish the 20 that needs their judgment.
"Casey taught me how to actually put AI to work. I generate quotes faster, my workflow is smoother, and I'm making more money because of it. One of the best investments I've made in my business."
01
Homework
Before we ever meet, you pull real examples of the work that eats your week: actual documents, actual messages, nothing cleaned up for me.
02
Session One
Two hours. We map how your studio actually runs, get Claude set up for your team, and train you on how to operate it.
03
Session Two
Two hours. We start building your first automations and put together the training your team needs to run Claude every day.
04
What You Leave With
Claude running for your team, your people trained on it, and one job automated and in use.
Five Automations We Could Build In Your Studio.
One page, no obligation. Proof of what we could build together, before we ever talk.
One email with the PDF. No newsletter, no drip campaign.
of creatives always tell clients when they use AI.
Source: Design Week, November 2025.
Most studio work sits under an NDA, so the data path gets written down and you approve it before any automation runs.
The Stack
Claude Sits In The Middle.
It works with the tools you already run. It reads from your project management system, your file storage, and your books, and writes back where it can.
Start with one connection, not all of them. The first automation usually needs one export from one system, and that is the whole first step. Once it earns its keep, the next system comes in, then the one after that. Every automation gets sharper as it goes, because Claude can finally see the whole project instead of one screen at a time.
The Numbers
The Numbers Studio Owners Are Seeing.
That feeling of being behind is not in your head. Designers are adopting fast, and they are just as clear about where AI does not belong.
Creative professionals already using AI
Source: Design Week, November 2025.
UK designers say AI dulls creativity
Source: Design Week, November 2025.
Questions
Questions, Answered.
I feel like I am already behind on AI. Is it too late?
No, and you are not as far behind as you think. The owners who feel furthest behind often move fastest once they start, because they have not spent a year on tools that did not stick. You do not need a strategy, a budget cycle, or a technical person on staff. You need four hours and one job that is costing you time every week. That is the whole first step.
Will this replace my designers?
No, and that is the whole design. An automation carries a job to 80 percent quickly and your person takes the final 20 percent over the finish line. Efficiency goes up for everyone, the studio grows without the headcount it used to need, margins grow with it, and your team spends its time on the work instead of the paperwork around it.
Will it work with the software we already run?
Usually, whether that is Notion, Asana, Basecamp, Harvest, or Dropbox. Some systems give me an API, some give me an export, and a few give me nothing but a screen to copy from. I tell you which one you have before I scope anything.
Is this going to generate logos?
No. I do not generate design, ever. No logos, no layouts, no illustration, no type. Image generators are a different product with a different job, and I am not in it. Everything I build is writing and admin, and the craft stays with your designers.
My team is skeptical about AI. Is that a problem?
No. It is why the scope is this narrow. The designers who push back hardest are protecting the craft, and nothing here asks for any of it. The automations sit on the writing: briefs, proposals, status notes, scope changes. No automation ever opens a layout file, because I never built one that could.
What happens to client work under NDA?
You approve the data path before any automation runs. Where a job can be done without client names or unreleased work, I do it that way. Where it cannot, I write down exactly what goes where and you sign off first. Nothing reaches a client without a person reading it.
How long before we see something working?
The first automation runs in weeks, not quarters. The two sessions scope it, I build it against your real discovery notes and SOW, and your team uses it while I refine it. One automation in production beats five in a plan.
Who owns what you build?
You own the automations and the documentation. They live in your account, written in plain language, so your team can read them and change them. If you stop working with me, nothing walks out the door.
What if we get to the end and nothing is worth automating?
Then you pay nothing. If after our first session you do not see a job worth automating, the engagement ends there and there is no charge. The first session either surfaces a job worth the money or it does not, and that risk is mine, not yours.
Why $1,950?
Because the format is small on purpose. Homework, two working sessions of two hours each, and the setup work around them. For the math: one person at $25 an hour who gets two hours a week back is worth about $2,600 a year. If the first automation does that for one employee, it has paid for itself with room to spare. Every number in that sentence is yours to check.
Who You Will Be Working With
Casey Templeton.
Founder of Stacks, a ten person business in Nashville that runs on Claude. Both sessions are with him directly, and every message from this page lands in his inbox, not a queue.
Start Here
Start With A Conversation Between Two Small Business Owners.
Tell me about your studio. I take on two or three of these engagements a month. Every message comes to me and I answer it myself. The first conversation costs nothing.
Book A 15 Minute Call"A fear of not understanding AI had kept me from diving in. Casey's coaching changed that. It opened my eyes to a sea of possibilities and left me more confident to explore. Come open-minded, and see where your imagination takes you."
I reply to every message. No newsletter, no drip campaign.