We built Tokyo Design Studio as a traditional creative agency. We pitched for projects, scoped engagements, and delivered campaigns on a per-project basis. It worked. But over time, we noticed a pattern among our best clients: they didn’t need a one-off rebrand or a single website. They needed ongoing, reliable creative output — month after month — without the overhead of hiring an in-house team.
That’s why we launched TDS DaaS — Design as a Service.
What Is Design as a Service?
Design as a Service is a subscription-based model that gives businesses access to a full creative department for a flat monthly fee. Instead of engaging an agency project by project — each with its own proposal, scope, and invoice — DaaS clients submit unlimited requests through a dedicated portal. Our team delivers work on a rolling basis, typically within 48 hours for standard deliverables.
The scope covers everything a modern business needs from a creative partner: brand design, graphic design, presentation decks, social media assets, web design and development, video production, photography direction, and C-suite creative strategy. It’s your entire marketing and brand design department, outsourced to a team that already knows your brand inside out.
Why We Built It
The traditional agency model creates friction. Clients hesitate to call because every conversation might become a billable engagement. Small but important tasks — updating a pitch deck, resizing social assets, creating internal documents — get deprioritised because they don’t justify a full project scope. Meanwhile, the business keeps growing and the brand starts drifting.
DaaS eliminates that friction. When your design team is on retainer at a fixed cost, you use them for everything. Brand consistency improves. Turnaround times shrink. And the total cost of creative output drops significantly compared to maintaining an equivalent in-house team or engaging agencies project by project.
How It Works
The model is straightforward. Clients choose a plan based on their volume needs, get access to a dedicated team, and submit requests through our streamlined workflow system. Each request is triaged, assigned, and delivered within agreed turnaround windows. Revisions are unlimited within reason, and every deliverable is held to the same standard we apply to our agency work.
Our team operates from both Sydney and Saigon, which means we cover more hours in the day and can offer pricing that pure-Australian agencies cannot match. The pricing structure is transparent — no hidden fees, no scope creep, no surprise invoices at the end of the month.
How DaaS Complements the Agency
TDS DaaS doesn’t replace the agency. It extends it. Large-scale strategic projects — full rebrands, complex web builds, integrated campaigns — still run through TDS Australia as scoped engagements. But for the steady stream of day-to-day creative work that every business generates, DaaS is the more efficient model.
Many of our clients use both: the agency for the big moves, and DaaS for everything in between. It’s one team, one brand understanding, two engagement models. Explore our full range of services to see what’s included.
If your business spends more than $5,000 a month on creative across multiple suppliers, DaaS is worth a conversation. Visit TDS DaaS to learn more.
DaaS is one component of TDS Australia's broader offering. For the complete picture, see our brand identity design services page.
