About

Services

How

Pricing

Teams

Design firepower - without the full-time hire

Ascend is a co-op of senior product + brand designers who embed in B2B teams.
Ship faster. Look sharper. Stay leaner.

Ascend is a co-op of senior product + brand designers who embed in B2B teams.
Ship faster. Look sharper. Stay leaner.

2 slots in June

Swipe down to explore

Previously
embedded at

Trusted BY
VISIONARIES

A. / About

Bridge the gap between agency polish and
in-house speed.

Bridge the gap between agency polish and in-house speed.

We plug into your Slack, join your standups, and work in your repos. Three weeks in, the line between your team and ours disappears.

[ CLIENTS ]

0+Brands

/ United nations, UNICEF,
PURPOSE, NETFLIX, HONEYWELL, BMW Group, ...

[ CLIENTS ]

0+Brands

/ United nations, UNICEF,
PURPOSE, NETFLIX, HONEYWELL, BMW Group, ...

[ RECOGNITION ]

0+Awards

/ If Design, IXDA,CANNES LION, KYOORIUS BluE ELEPHANT...

[ RECOGNITION ]

0+Awards

/ If Design, IXDA,CANNES LION, KYOORIUS BluE ELEPHANT...

[ IMPACT ]

0+$M

/ Raised for our Clients

[ IMPACT ]

0+$M

/ Raised for our Clients

[ THE HOW ]

Embedded - not outsourced.

[ THE HOW ]

Embedded - not outsourced.

[ OFFER ]

Skillsets

  • UX DESIGN

    UI/UX

    AI Prototyping

    DESIGN SYSTEMS

    ACCESSIBILITY

    USER TESTING

    B2B Enterprise

    SaaS

    AI Native

    WEB DESIGN

  • CONTENT WRITING

    CAMPAIGN

    Creatives

    BRANDING AND IDENTITY

    ILLUSTRATIONS & Typography

    MOTION Design

    B2B Enterprise

  • FRAMER

    NO CODE AND DEVELOPMENT

    NATIVE AND RESPONSIVE APP/WEB

    AIR TABLE

    FRONT END

[ OFFER ]

Skillsets

  • UX DESIGN

    UI/UX

    AI Prototyping

    DESIGN SYSTEMS

    ACCESSIBILITY

    USER TESTING

    B2B Enterprise

    SaaS

    AI Native

    WEB DESIGN

  • CONTENT WRITING

    CAMPAIGN

    Creatives

    BRANDING AND IDENTITY

    ILLUSTRATIONS & Typography

    MOTION Design

    B2B Enterprise

  • FRAMER

    NO CODE AND DEVELOPMENT

    NATIVE AND RESPONSIVE APP/WEB

    AIR TABLE

    FRONT END

[ CLIENTS ]

0+Brands

/ United nations, UNICEF,
PURPOSE, NETFLIX, HONEYWELL, BMW Group, ...

[ CLIENTS ]

0+Brands

/ United nations, UNICEF,
PURPOSE, NETFLIX, HONEYWELL, BMW Group, ...

[ RECOGNITION ]

0+Awards

/ If Design, IXDA,CANNES LION, KYOORIUS BluE ELEPHANT...

[ RECOGNITION ]

0+Awards

/ If Design, IXDA,CANNES LION, KYOORIUS BluE ELEPHANT...

[ IMPACT ]

0+$M

/ Raised for our Clients

[ IMPACT ]

0+$M

/ Raised for our Clients

[ OFFER ]

Skillsets

  • UX DESIGN

    UI/UX

    AI Prototyping

    DESIGN SYSTEMS

    ACCESSIBILITY

    USER TESTING

    B2B Enterprise

    SaaS

    AI Native

    WEB DESIGN

  • CONTENT WRITING

    CAMPAIGN

    Creatives

    BRANDING AND IDENTITY

    ILLUSTRATIONS & Typography

    MOTION Design

    B2B Enterprise

  • FRAMER

    NO CODE AND DEVELOPMENT

    NATIVE AND RESPONSIVE APP/WEB

    AIR TABLE

    FRONT END

[ OFFER ]

Skillsets

  • UX DESIGN

    UI/UX

    AI Prototyping

    DESIGN SYSTEMS

    ACCESSIBILITY

    USER TESTING

    B2B Enterprise

    SaaS

    AI Native

    WEB DESIGN

  • CONTENT WRITING

    CAMPAIGN

    Creatives

    BRANDING AND IDENTITY

    ILLUSTRATIONS & Typography

    MOTION Design

    B2B Enterprise

  • FRAMER

    NO CODE AND DEVELOPMENT

    NATIVE AND RESPONSIVE APP/WEB

    AIR TABLE

    FRONT END

B. / Services

Design that ships,
not design that sits.

Design that ships,
not design that sits.

Six capabilities, one partnership.
We scope to outcome, not headcount.

UX Design & Strategy

User Research

FLOWS

PROTOTYPES

AI Features & Integration

LLM UX

AGENTS

DASHBOARDS

Scalable Design Systems

TOKENS

COMPONENTS

DOCS

UI Design & Handoff

WCAG

RESPONSIVE

ANNOTED

Branding & Art Direction

IDENTITY

CAMPAIGN

STRATEGY

Creative Campaigns

SOCIAL

LAUNCHES

NARRATIVE

UI Design & Handoff

WCAG

RESPONSIVE

ANNOTED

Branding & Art Direction

IDENTITY

CAMPAIGN

STRATEGY

Creative Campaigns

SOCIAL

LAUNCHES

NARRATIVE

What our friends say

What our friends say

Kinshuk, I really appreciated working with you and helping us shape the AQMx platform. Thank you again for your reactivity, adaptability, and great suggestions along the way!

Juliette Laurent

Air Quality Specialist, CCAC, United Nations

Thanks so much for all the work on the Purpose website and rebranding effort - we couldn’t have done it without you!!!

Claire Dimmock

Associate Director Project Management, Purpose

Stellar design work, Samya brings patient, calm leadership. He communicates clearly, stands firm when it matters, and bring a steady, composed energy that's rare in creative work.

Sheetal Raghav

Creative Director, Animal

C. / How we work

Build for every stage

Build for every stage

Startups
Scale-ups
Enterprise

Seed to Series B.
Finding the product and building the brand simultaneously.

You're moving too fast to wait for a hire. We drop in as your design team - product, brand, and everything in between.
You'll be working with

Design+Strategy

Immersion

Structured onboarding across your product, users, market, and brand positioning. Right context in, right decisions out.

ONBOARDING AND ALIGNMENT CALLS

Open channel

A standing session to review product and brand work, brief new projects, and keep momentum. In-person when possible.

Brainstorming

We map out competing product and brand directions using your brief, user signals, and market context. You pick the path, we refine it.

Workshops

DesiGN Sprints

UX Interviews

AI Prototyping

Brand & identity

Naming, logo, visual language, guidelines, tone. The full foundation so every touchpoint looks intentional, not improvised.

BRANDING & IDENTITY

ILLUSTRATIONS/Typography

DESIGN SYSTEMS

Build and validation

Components, screens, and brand assets built from a shared system - plus production-ready prototypes so you can test with users and demo to investors before writing a line of code.

UX DESIGN

USER TESTING

Handoff & Governance

Startups
Scale-ups
Enterprise

Seed to Series B.
Finding the product and building the brand simultaneously.

You're moving too fast to wait for a hire. We drop in as your design team - product, brand, and everything in between.
You'll be working with

Design+Strategy

Immersion

Structured onboarding across your product, users, market, and brand positioning. Right context in, right decisions out.

ONBOARDING AND ALIGNMENT CALLS

Open channel

A standing session to review product and brand work, brief new projects, and keep momentum. In-person when possible.

Brainstorming

We map out competing product and brand directions using your brief, user signals, and market context. You pick the path, we refine it.

Workshops

DesiGN Sprints

UX Interviews

AI Prototyping

Brand & identity

Naming, logo, visual language, guidelines, tone. The full foundation so every touchpoint looks intentional, not improvised.

BRANDING & IDENTITY

ILLUSTRATIONS/Typography

DESIGN SYSTEMS

Build and validation

Components, screens, and brand assets built from a shared system - plus production-ready prototypes so you can test with users and demo to investors before writing a line of code.

UX DESIGN

USER TESTING

Handoff & Governance

D. / Price

No guesswork on pricing -
Two plans, transparent rates.

No guesswork on pricing -
Two plans, transparent rates.

SUMMIT

CLUB

SUMMIT

CLUB

Pick your route -
Both lead up.

One call - we look at your product, you look at our portfolio. If there's a fit, you pick a tier and we're in your Slack by Monday.

SUMMIT

CLUB

Base Camp
One time focused design requestes with defined
outcomes and timelines.

One-off
Engagement

Project-specific design partnership

Strategy led execution in weekly sprints

Weekly check-ins + 24hrs support

Perfect for Branding, Website landing pages & Pitchdecks

The Summit
Your plug and play design team.
We embed in your team, run all requirements.

Monthly
Retainer

Integrated design team, minus the full-time hiring overhead

Strategy led execution in weekly sprints

Bi-Weekly check-ins + 24hrs support

Ideal for long-term engagements, building complex design systems and 0-1 initiatives

Don't stall your roadmap for a hire.

Ship with a design partner who matches your pace.

With Ascend

Strategy & Design

Strategy & Design

Test

Test

Launch

Launch

In-house

Hiring

Hiring

Onboarding

Onboarding

E. / MEET THE TEAM

Co-op of three -
no layers.

Co-op of three. No layers.

Kinshuk

Founder /
Lead Product Designer

12+ years designing enterprise products at Honeywell, BT Group, and Simpplr. Three patents, an iF Design Award, and a habit of shipping things that move metrics.

Sam

Co-OP Partner /
ART DIRECTOR & Design

Art director by title, systems thinker by habit. Led creative for orgs like UNICEF and Meta. Brings Cannes Lions energy and dad-joke timing to every project.


Soumya M.

Co-op Partner /
Strategist & Content Writer

10 years of ads, from M&C Saatchi to Ogilvy's top table. Writes for BMW and Uber, wins pitches for Amazon and Domino's. English lit grad gone rogue.

Let's turn your product into something competitors can't unsee.