Design-led creative support for small businesses
Your monthly creative department, led by an experienced designer.
Design Zen helps small businesses get sharper design, stronger content, better website updates, cleaner ad creative, and more consistent marketing assets every month for one flat monthly fee.
You work with Craig Strachan, a designer and marketing strategist with experience across brand, layout, websites, paid media, content, SEO, and campaign execution. AI helps speed up production. The value is the creative judgment, strategy, taste, and experience behind the work.
Creative direction board
What an experienced eye catches
Make the offer easier to understand
Sharper hierarchy, better messaging, clearer CTA flow
Turn rough ideas into usable assets
Design, copy, layout, and campaign context working together
Keep the brand looking consistent
Social, ads, web, email, and print aligned every month
20+
years creative experience
1
real creative lead
flat
monthly pricing
The real problem
Most businesses do not need more tools. They need better creative judgment.
AI can generate copy, images, and ideas. That does not mean the work is right for your brand, your customer, your offer, or the channel where it needs to perform.
Good marketing still needs taste, hierarchy, restraint, clarity, design fundamentals, and business context. Design Zen gives you a trained creative partner who can use modern tools without handing you generic AI output to sort through yourself.
You need someone who knows what good looks like
Layout, contrast, typography, messaging, spacing, and visual hierarchy affect whether your marketing feels professional or forgettable.
You need execution without babysitting
You should not have to prompt, revise, resize, rewrite, brief, and chase every piece of creative yourself.
You need consistency across every touchpoint
Your social posts, ads, website, emails, offers, and sales materials should feel like they came from the same brand.
What you get
Design, content, website, and campaign support with senior creative direction behind it.
Submit creative and marketing requests as you need them. Design Zen turns ideas, promotions, updates, offers, and campaigns into finished assets your business can actually use.
Social Media Content
Static posts, carousels, captions, promotional graphics, seasonal content, and content calendars with stronger visual direction.
Website Updates
WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and landing page updates with sharper copy, images, layout, and CTA flow.
Ad Creative
Google, Meta, display, social, and campaign graphics built around offer clarity, trust, and visual hierarchy.
Blog & Email Content
AI-assisted drafts refined with human editing, brand voice, structure, and practical marketing context.
Print & Sales Collateral
Flyers, brochures, sales sheets, menus, one-pagers, event materials, and lead magnets designed to feel polished.
Light SEO Support
Title tags, meta descriptions, local content, blog topics, service page updates, and on-page content improvements.
Creative Concepts
Campaign ideas, visual directions, image concepts, content angles, and creative variations guided by design experience.
Campaign Support
Monthly promos, seasonal campaigns, launch assets, offer graphics, and creative testing ideas that connect the pieces.
How it works
Simple monthly support. No bloated agency process.
The goal is to give you one reliable place for ongoing creative execution, guided by someone who understands both design and marketing.
Book your Creative Audit
Craig reviews your website, social media, offers, and current marketing assets to identify the fastest opportunities.
Choose your monthly plan
Pick the level of design, content, website, and campaign support your business needs.
Submit requests anytime
Send tasks by email, form, or shared project board. The process stays simple and organized.
Design Zen creates, refines, and delivers
AI can speed up production, but every piece is shaped by design judgment, marketing strategy, and brand context.
Your business stays active
You get consistent creative output without hiring, managing, or learning every tool yourself.
Why not just use AI yourself?
Because tools do not replace taste, experience, or creative direction.
You can use AI yourself, but you still have to know what to ask for, what to keep, what to cut, what looks off, what matches your brand, and what will actually help a customer take action.
Design Zen uses AI the way an experienced designer uses any advanced tool. It speeds up exploration and production, while Craig brings the design eye, marketing judgment, editing, structure, and final polish.
Monthly plans
Choose the level of creative support your business needs.
Every plan gives you access to a real creative lead, not just a queue of disconnected tasks.
Starter
$995/month CAD
For businesses that need consistent creative help.
- ✓ 10 creative credits per month
- ✓ 1 active request at a time
- ✓ Social graphics and captions
- ✓ Simple website updates
- ✓ 1 monthly strategy call
Growth
Most Popular$1,995/month CAD
For businesses that need a real monthly creative engine.
- ✓ 25 creative credits per month
- ✓ 2 active requests at a time
- ✓ Monthly content calendar
- ✓ Social, ad, web, blog, and email support
- ✓ Light SEO updates
- ✓ 2 monthly strategy calls
Scale
$3,995/month CAD
For businesses that need a serious creative and marketing partner.
- ✓ 60 creative credits per month
- ✓ 3 active requests at a time
- ✓ Weekly strategy check-in
- ✓ Campaign planning and landing page improvements
- ✓ SEO content support and video scripts
Clear scope
What counts as a credit?
Credits make the subscription fair, flexible, and easy to manage. Simple tasks use fewer credits. Larger projects use more.
1 Credit
Static social post, simple ad graphic, caption set, email header, blog image, simple website text update, basic image concept.
2 Credits
Carousel post, flyer, blog draft, email campaign, landing page section, simple infographic, Google Business Profile content batch.
3 Credits
Full landing page concept, lead magnet, campaign creative set, short slide presentation, short-form video script package.
5+ Credits
Full website page, pitch deck, brand refresh concept, multi-channel campaign package, or long-form content piece.
Selected work examples
Real creative thinking across design, campaigns, websites, content, and performance.
These examples are pulled from the kind of work Craig has planned, directed, built, reviewed, or optimized across local businesses, hospitality, home services, restaurants, events, and multi-location brands.
Ad creative and offer design
Remodeling campaign
Better offer clarity. Stronger visual hierarchy.
Creative built around premium service, homeowner trust, and clear next steps.
Campaign assets that look credible before someone reads the copy.
For service businesses, the creative has to do more than look nice. It has to make the offer understandable, feel trustworthy, and give the customer a reason to act.
Performance and reporting
+125%
conversion growth
-55%
cost per lead
Reporting that turns activity into decisions.
Good creative support is not just output. It is knowing what changed, what worked, what needs to be improved, and how the next round of content or ads should be shaped.
Websites and landing pages
Landing pages built around trust, clarity, and action.
From page structure and messaging to CTA flow and local proof, the focus is helping visitors understand the offer quickly and feel confident enough to take the next step.
Why this builds trust
You are not buying random tasks. You are buying experienced creative judgment.
Design background with hands-on creative production across graphics, websites, copy, photography, video, and campaign assets.
Marketing strategy experience across paid media, SEO, CRM, social, content calendars, conversion reviews, and performance reporting.
Local business and multi-location experience, including hospitality, restaurants, events, home services, retail, and consumer brands.
A practical process that connects brand consistency, customer attention, better CTAs, and monthly execution.
Visual proof
A closer look at real design work.
A selection of real creative pieces Craig has designed across promotions, websites, co-branded campaigns, content, and local business marketing. This is the visual proof behind the strategy.
Brand campaign design
WLBV Brand Campaign Layout
A polished campaign layout designed to make the brand feel established, organized, and ready for a professional audience.
Website and UX design
Website Concept and Page Direction
A website design concept focused on structure, visual flow, and helping visitors understand the offer quickly.
Retail campaign design
Watch It Promotional Creative
Retail-focused promotional design created to catch attention, communicate the offer clearly, and support campaign visibility.
B2B co-branded design
Qixas and Microsoft Partner Creative
A professional co-branded asset designed to balance credibility, brand alignment, and a clean presentation of the message.
Media and content design
Keyspire REC Podcast Promotion
Podcast promotional creative built to give the content a clear visual identity and make the episode feel easy to engage with.
Local business design
BeeZee Auto Marketing Creative
Local business marketing creative designed to feel approachable, credible, and clear enough to support the next customer action.
Led by Craig Strachan
A designer’s eye with a marketer’s brain.
Design Zen is led by Craig Strachan, a Toronto-area designer and marketing strategist with a graphic design background and hands-on experience across websites, landing pages, paid media, content, SEO, brand strategy, and campaign execution.
After years of seeing small businesses struggle to keep up with marketing demands, Craig built Design Zen to give owners a more practical option: ongoing creative support that is faster than a traditional agency, more reliable than random freelancers, and more strategic than using AI tools alone.
The difference is not that Design Zen has access to AI. The difference is that the work is guided by someone who understands design, marketing, customer attention, visual hierarchy, brand consistency, and how creative assets need to function in the real world.
Free Creative Audit
Start with a designer’s review of your marketing.
Book a free Creative Audit and Craig will review your website, social media, content, offers, and current marketing assets. You will get a clear breakdown of what to improve first and what assets your business should be creating monthly.
Audit includes:
- Website first impression
- Social media consistency review
- Content opportunities
- Offer and CTA review
- Local SEO and content gaps
- 30-day creative plan
- Recommended next steps
FAQ
Questions business owners ask first.
Is this really unlimited?
No. Design Zen uses monthly creative credits and active request limits so the work stays clear, fair, and high quality.
Do you use AI for the work?
Yes. AI helps speed up research, concepts, first drafts, image direction, and variations. Craig still directs, edits, designs, reviews, and refines the work before delivery.
Why can’t I just use AI myself?
You can, but you still need to know what to ask for, what to reject, how to make it fit your brand, and how to turn raw output into professional marketing assets. Design Zen gives you the benefit of AI plus experienced creative direction.
Can I talk to a real person?
Yes. Every plan includes direct access to a real creative lead by email, request form, shared project board, and scheduled calls based on your plan.
Do you manage paid ads?
Paid ads management is not included in the standard plans, but ad creative and campaign asset creation are included. Paid media management can be quoted separately.
Do you build full websites?
Light website updates and page improvements are included depending on your plan. Full website builds, complex e-commerce builds, and custom development are quoted separately.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. Plans are month-to-month unless a custom agreement says otherwise.