Your Brand Partners
Version-X is a brand leadership agency.
We partner with clients that want more than design. They want vision, direction, and a team that can help shape what’s next.
How we unblock growth:
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We help brands cut through noise by identifying what truly sets them apart.
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We translate internal strengths into outward-facing language that clicks with real people, not just stakeholders.
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We unify inconsistent branding and scattered creative efforts into one clear, consistent expression.
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This void could exist in two different ways: if no one’s guiding the brand, or too many people are. We bring experienced brand ownership and clarity to the table.
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We spot gaps in the market and under-leveraged brand assets and help you turn them into growth paths.
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You’re too close to it. We’re not. That means we can ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, and help you see what you’ve been missing.
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We scale with you. Whether you need a sprint, a specific creative lift, or an ongoing brand partner—we flex to fit your phase.
A Small But Mighty Team
We’re big believers in smaller is better. Unencumbered by the bloat of larger agencies, we’re able to be leaner, more focused, and provide direct access to our best and brightest.
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CCO, BRAND SPECIALIST
Chris Fasan is the Principal and Chief Creative Officer of Version-X. With more than two decades of experience guiding brand strategy and creative direction, he has helped companies ranging from ambitious startups to global enterprises build identities that stand out and scale.
Known for his unique balance of West Coast calm and East Coast directness, Chris leads with both composure and conviction. He thrives on turning complexity into clarity, challenging assumptions and pushing teams and clients toward bold yet thoughtful brand systems that deliver real impact.
Hands-on by nature, he’s unfazed by ambiguity and is committed to doing the hard work that sets great brands apart, ensuring every detail aligns with the larger vision.
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SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Erik is a graduate of Oregon State University's Graphic Design Program and is a process-driven graphic designer, photographer, video editor, and motion graphics animator.
He brings a sharp eye for detail as well as divergent and convergent thinking processes to each project he works on.
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GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Sadie is a graphic designer with a bachelor’s degree from George Fox University. Her love of art and creativity has been a constant from an early age and continues to drive her life.
Her design work is fun, modern, and cutesy whenever possible. She doesn’t follow design trends, but Creates With Vibes™. She brings her quiet personality and dry sarcasm to the team, with a willingness to help anyone.
Our Process
Yes, process. Every agency worth their salt has one. Some call it “special” or “proprietary”, as if you should hire them just for this alone.
Ultimately they all start to sound very similar, and anyone can easily copy-paste or prompt into existence something that sounds impressive on paper.
The real value is in the people behind the process. The thoughts and ideas that are generated when going through the steps. That’s what’s really special. That’s the real “why” behind who to choose.
Here’s a glimpse at how we work, in the context of a major creative project:
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We talk to the client to get an understanding of their business, their goals, their competitors, their points of differentiation, their audience(s), etc.
We ask questions and sit back and listen, both to what’s said and what isn’t. We probe deeper where needed. We challenge assumptions when called for. We play devil’s advocate when appropriate. We look at it as if it were our company.
Are we excited about it? If not, how can we generate that enthusiasm?
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We take the information we got from client conversations and use that as a basis to do our own research.
We’ll assess the market, the competitive landscape and their expressed reasons to buy, compare them to what the client offers, and identify gaps in the market as we see them. We assume nothing.
If we have some thoughts or questions after this we’ll talk it through with the client in a followup call.
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There’s no point in designing anything without knowing what story we’re trying to tell.
Position, personality, tone etc. all need to be expressed and locked down otherwise visuals and copy have no chance at greatness.
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We start with inspiration gathering to express directions we feel are viable before investing our time creating original designs.
These idea boards get our thoughts across efficiently so we can narrow down our efforts to something that is much closer to a direction that everyone’s on board with.
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We know what we’re trying to say, we know who we’re saying it to, and we know the general aesthetic we want to achieve. Now we can start creating things.
Design ideas bounce back and forth between our in-house senior creative talent. Reviews and check-ins are frequent. Ideas get handed back and forth for a fresh set of eyes to riff on.
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We present our directions, expressing why we made the choices we did. We then discuss with the client and get their take.
Collaboration occurs with the end goal being what’s best for the brand’s success.
Revisions and refinement get us to a final version that everyone loves!
AI in Our Work
We see AI as a tool that can add real value when used in the right ways.
It helps us move faster in certain areas such as research, exploration, and idea development. That efficiency allows us to dedicate more energy to the parts of the process that matter most: strategy, creativity, and insight.
The goal isn’t to replace originality or craft. It’s to use technology where appropriate and keep people at the center of what’s important, ensuring every outcome feels authentic and connected.
Here’s how we do and don’t use AI at various stages in our creative workflow:
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We have a custom-built brand research engine that allows us to generate competitive landscape comparisons quickly, with failsafes to ensure false info and “hallucinations” are not happening.
We then verify sources to make sure we’re looking at real data before using it as reference material.
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The first part of brainstorm sessions is typically taken up by coming up with the most obvious ideas.
AI is great for getting this out of the way quickly so that we can spend our efforts coming up with more out-of-the-box thoughts.
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We’ve yet to see from-scratch design from AI that lives up to our standards, but who knows what the future holds.
For now, we use various tools to enhance our own assets, create motion when none exists, or generate stock-like secondary assets not worthy of bespoke creation.
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Sometimes it’s just easier to have a starting point vs. staring at a blank page. In these instances, we use our custom-built copywriting AI tool to give us a first draft of something.
With some savvy prompting and provided context and personality cues we can often get pretty close, but we always wind up tweaking it at least a bit.
Explore working together
Whether it’s a one-off project, a brand creation sprint or one of our various ongoing relationship retainers, we have unique offerings that satisfy a variety of creative needs.
Let’s partner up!
Interest piqued? Send us a note and we’ll be in touch!