Wide open, by design
Carburetor is a design and PR agency for companies that need professional creative and communications work, and the reasoning behind every decision that produced it.
The work is the only thing you receive.
Most professional services work has the same shape. The client receives a deliverable, and everything that produced it stays inside the agency: the thinking, the tools, the alternatives considered, the rationale for the direction chosen.
This works until it doesn't. A brand system you can't extend. A PR narrative you can't explain to your own board. A positioning document that's right for now and unusable in six months.
The problem isn't the quality of the work. It's that the work is all you get.
Every engagement produces two things.
The deliverable
The work itself: the brand system, the PR strategy, the positioning document. Built to professional standard, documented for handoff, ready to use.
The intelligence layer
A structured document, delivered alongside the work, that records what was decided, what tools produced it, and why. Every significant choice is written down with the options we rejected and the reasoning that settled it.
The intelligence layer is a client asset. It is versioned with the deliverable, updated when the deliverable changes, and written in plain language for you, not as internal documentation.
A client who understands why their brand system works a certain way can extend it correctly. A client who received a black box cannot.
What we do, and what you get with it.
Brand & design
Structural, not decorative.
Visual identity and brand architecture for companies building something worth recognizing. Every element is documented with its logic. Delivered with a usage guide that explains the system, not just shows it.
Structural, not decorative.
Visual identity and brand architecture for companies building something worth recognizing. Every element is documented with its logic. Delivered with a usage guide that explains the system, not just shows it.
- Decided
- Wordmark set in Inter, uppercase, wide-tracked.
- Rejected
- A serif display face (reads formal at small sizes). A custom-drawn wordmark (your team cannot extend it).
- Tools
- Type specimens tested on screen from 11px to 72px. A language model drafted the first set of usage rules; a designer rewrote them.
- Why
- Inter holds weight at 11px on screen and is open source, so any team member can set it without a license.
Illustrative example written for this site, not taken from a client project.
PR & media strategy
Decisions are visible. Placements are earned.
Targeted narrative and outreach, focused on the publications that actually reach your buyers, not the ones that look impressive in a quarterly report. No vanity metrics. No broadcast distribution.
Decisions are visible. Placements are earned.
Targeted narrative and outreach, focused on the publications that actually reach your buyers, not the ones that look impressive in a quarterly report. No vanity metrics. No broadcast distribution.
- Decided
- Pitch three trade publications read by plant operations managers, by direct contact.
- Rejected
- Wire distribution. A 40-outlet list ranked by audience size.
- Tools
- A language model produced the first outlet list. Every outlet was then checked by hand against its last six months of coverage.
- Why
- Your buyers read the trades. A wire release reaches none of them.
Illustrative example written for this site, not taken from a client project.
Positioning & messaging
Strip. Test. Explain.
Corporate narrative overhauls. Jargon stripped out, tested against real customer segments for clarity and retention. The final document explains every change, not just the result.
Strip. Test. Explain.
Corporate narrative overhauls. Jargon stripped out, tested against real customer segments for clarity and retention. The final document explains every change, not just the result.
- Decided
- Replace "end-to-end logistics solutions" with "We move freight between ports and plants in 48 hours."
- Rejected
- Two abstract variants that tested well with executives and poorly with buyers.
- Tools
- A language model drafted the first positioning framework. We tested it against three customer interview transcripts.
- Why
- Customers in all three interviews described the service by speed, never by "solutions".
Illustrative example written for this site, not taken from a client project.
A record, not a process description.
The intelligence document is a structured record of three things. It travels with the deliverable, updates when the work updates, and is written for you in plain language. It is not internal shorthand, and it is not a tool log.
What was decided
The outcome and the alternatives considered. Every significant choice is recorded with the options we rejected and why.
What tools produced it
AI systems, research platforms and reference materials. "AI-assisted" is not a complete sentence. We say exactly what was used and how.
Why
The reasoning, with constraints named explicitly. If we can't explain a decision, we haven't finished making it.
We use AI operationally. We say so.
This openness is a quality guarantee, not a product feature. It is also what makes the intelligence layer possible: if we weren't tracking which tools produced what, we couldn't document it.
What AI does in our work
- Research and first-draft synthesis
- Intelligence layer documentation
- Testing language variants against brief criteria
What AI never replaces
- Design and editorial judgment
- Client relationships and strategic decisions
- The decision to ship or not ship any work
Craft stays primary. AI is infrastructure.
Companies at an inflection point.
Small and mid-sized companies that need professional creative and communications work, and have no desire to build an internal AI function.
- A round raised
- A market entry
- A rebrand prompted by growth
- A new category to explain
The right client wants to understand the work, not just receive it. They have opinions. They will push back. They want the reasoning documented because they know they will need to make decisions without us later.
Not for everyone. We are not the right agency for clients who want confidence from mystification. The intelligence layer makes our process visible. Clients who find that uncomfortable will be more comfortable elsewhere.
Wide open, by design
If you want to know how the work was made (the decisions, the tools, the reasoning) we're probably the right agency.
Three questions, no discovery questionnaire. We reply within one business day with either a proposal for a scoping call or a direct referral if we're not the right fit.