reduction in production costs
faster asset delivery per illustration
to deliver all 20 brand systems, down from 6 months
brands, each with its own custom illustration model
All metrics reflect actual project outcomes. Company name withheld per confidentiality agreement.
overview
A full-service marketing agency based in Germany, managing campaigns for over 20 clients across industries ranging from financial services to consumer goods. The agency employed a team of 35, with a creative department of 12 handling everything from brand strategy to final asset delivery.
The agency had been brought on by a large holding company to consolidate and refresh the visual identity of 20+ brands under one corporate umbrella. Each brand had its own illustration style, built up over years by different designers and freelancers. The brief was ambitious: create a cohesive illustration system for each brand that felt distinctive to that brand but visually connected to the parent company. Then roll it out across landing pages, marketing campaigns, and internal materials.
Marketing Agency · Multi-brand
January 2026
Custom illustration models + batch visual generation for 20 brands
60% cost reduction · 5x faster delivery · 6 weeks vs 6 months
The Challenge
In the traditional workflow, this meant hiring freelance illustrators to study each brand's existing visual language, produce sample illustrations, go through revision rounds, and then begin producing final assets. At a rate of $300 to $1,200 per custom illustration and 3 to 5 business days per asset, the cost and timeline were stacking up fast. For 20 brands, each needing 15 to 25 illustration assets, the agency was looking at roughly 400 individual illustrations.
- $240,000 in freelance illustration fees for 400 illustrations across 20 brands, at an average of $600 each — before any revisions.
- 5 to 6 month delivery timeline even with multiple illustrators working in parallel, too slow for the agency's client commitments.
- Style drift across freelancers each illustrator interpreted the brief slightly differently, leading to revision cycles that ate into the timeline and margin.
The agency's creative director described the challenge simply: "We were spending more time managing illustrators than doing creative work."
How We Solved It
It started with the existing assets. We sat down with the agency's creative team and went brand by brand, studying visual languages, colour systems, and guidelines to build a custom AI model for each of the 20 illustration styles.
1. Studying each brand's visual language
We started by ingesting the existing visual assets, brand guidelines, and colour systems for each brand. Where the visual language was undocumented, we worked with the agency's designers to define it.
2. Building on-demand illustration models
Once each model was trained, the agency could generate brand-consistent illustrations on demand. The creative team directed the output, selecting and refining the illustrations that matched their creative vision. The AI handled the production. The humans kept the judgment.
Brand Audit
Existing assets, guidelines, and colour systems ingested for each brand
Style Definition
Visual language documented where it was previously unwritten
Model Training
Custom AI model built for each brand's illustration style
On-Demand Generation
Brand-consistent illustrations generated on demand
Creative Direction
Team selects and refines outputs that match their vision
Multi-Brand Rollout
Assets deployed across landing pages, campaigns, and materials
6-Week Delivery
All 20 brand systems delivered on schedule
The Results
Six weeks. That's how long it took to deliver all 20 brand illustration systems, with assets ready for landing pages, campaign materials, and brand guidelines. The original estimate had been 5 to 6 months.
Total project cost came in at $96,000, down from a $240,000 freelance estimate. That's a 60% reduction in production costs.
Illustrations that previously took 3 to 5 days were produced in under a day, including creative review and refinement. Asset delivery was 5x faster overall.
Each model was trained on that brand's specific visual language, so every output was consistent. Zero style drift across all 20 brands.
The agency has since used Brushless for three additional client engagements, each time reducing the production timeline by more than half.
This case study is based on a real client engagement with a full-service marketing agency in Germany. The agency managed a brand consolidation project across 20+ clients for a large holding company. Company name withheld per confidentiality agreement. All metrics reflect actual project outcomes.