Design + AI systems studio · Philadelphia

Punch above
your size

Upwield makes small organizations look sharp and run lean — design and AI systems under one roof, so a three-person shop shows up like a thirty-person one.

A one-person studio — you work with the maker, not an account manager.

Two halves of one studio

Everything here makes you bigger than you are — on the surface, or under the hood.

Look sharp

Show up like a bigger, more credible organization.

Deck Production
Investor, board, and advocacy decks that look like a design studio made them. Priced per slide.
Per-Event Media
A next-day highlight video and a staff/performer notes PDF — every show, on a template.
Brand Kits soon
Logo, identity, and reusable templates so everything you send looks like one company.
Run lean

Operate like a bigger, more efficient organization.

Automation Audit
A one-week diagnostic that finds the manual busywork and hands you a ranked plan to kill it.
$499
Workflow Bots
Slack and Discord bots that handle the repetitive work — FAQ, onboarding, notifications, ops.
Self-Host Migration
Move off stacked monthly subscriptions onto tools you own. Your savings pay for the switch.
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How it works

Start small. We earn the next thing.

No long contract to begin. One cheap, concrete project — then the work tells us what's worth building next.

1

Start with a wedge

A $499 audit, or a single deck. Low risk, fast turnaround, nothing to commit to.

2

Get something concrete

A ranked plan with hours and dollars saved — or a deck you can present Monday.

3

We build what it surfaces

The bot, the migration, the next deck. You only fund what the first project proved was worth it.

4

Stay lean

An optional monthly retainer keeps the systems running and the work looking sharp.

Proof

Already shipping, already paid for.

Real work for paying clients — anonymized, because what's built in the room stays in the room. Three recent ones:

Look sharp · Decks
Briefing decks that hold a room of aides
Problem: small teams walking into big rooms with slides that shrink them. Built: a reusable deck system — one focal point per slide, sourced figures, zero template look — re-skinned per audience.
Dozensinvestor, board, civic & advocacy decks shipped
Run lean · Automation
A 300,000-message inbox, made findable
Problem: a mailbox so deep nothing could be found. Built: a sorting and auto-filing system that cleared the backlog and keeps it clean — contracted, delivered, invoiced.
300kmessages organized for a paying client
Look sharp · Per-event media
Next-day recap media — every single show
Problem: a Philadelphia music venue that needed sharp recaps with no media team. Built: a templated pipeline — highlight video plus a staff/performer notes PDF, same brand every time.
~2 hrsmarginal time per event — half runs on Upwield's own tooling
A few recent decks
Strategy
Keeping public dollars in the local economy
Procurement strategy
Briefing
The local case for food security
1 in 6face food insecurity
Food-policy briefing
Advocacy
Make the case the room can’t ignore.
Advocacy campaign

Full, name-stripped samples on request.

Built & shipped

Most studios show mockups. This runs in production — click any of it.

Design is half the studio. The other half is software that actually ships. A sample you can open right now:

Plus 90+ Claude Code skills, a private local-AI suite, and a stack more live builds — see the full portfolio or browse the code.

Who you're working with
IS

Upwield is Ian Swain — a Philadelphia operator who spent 14 years running operations before going all-in on building studios. The combination is the whole point: most shops hand you a designer or an automation person. Ian is both — which is how a three-person organization ends up looking and running like a thirty-person one. You work with the maker from first email to final file. No account managers, no handoffs, no markup on someone else's work.

Ian reads every intake personally — and replies within one business day.

Where are you losing time — or looking smaller than you are?

Tell us in five questions. We'll point to the fastest fix, whether that's a deck this week or an automation that saves you ten hours a month.

Start with an audit Start a deck