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About Pugo Design

Your Full Creative Partner from brand foundations to everything built on them.

Pugo Design Studio is a full-service branding and creative agency based in Cebu, Philippines. Founded in December 2013, we partner with business owners, marketing professionals, and agencies across United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, UAE, and beyond. We build brands and everything that runs on them.

Brand Name Story

Why “Pugo”?

Pugo is the Filipino word for quail.

In Ramos, Cebu, a local vendor sold kwek-kwek from a busy street corner near a medical college. Battered quail eggs. Small, humble, impactful. Consistent day after day. That image stayed with us.

That is how we think about design. Not flashy. Not loud. Built to work reliably for the people who depend on it. A quail shows up every day. So do we.

Our Story

How Pugo started

Pugo Design Studio was founded in December 2013 by Gideon Ray Wagas in Cebu, Philippines.

Gideon holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Advertising. He worked his way from designer to Creative Lead at a multinational company before going independent. In his freelance years, he won over 100 international design contests. Most of them were in logo and brand identity. Consistent wins built a track record. They also made something clear: the best work comes from a team.

Gilcy Yanna Wagas was still in design school when Gideon asked her to join him. She brought a few of her classmates. That is how Pugo started. Not a grand plan. Just people who cared about craft, building something worth building.

Today, Pugo runs as a studio of 10 to 20 people organized into three specialized creative teams: the Branding Flock, the Multimedia Flock, and the Web Flock. Each team is led by a Creative Lead who owns the quality and direction of their work.

Who We Serve

Built for people who need more than pretty.

We work with three kinds of clients.

Business owners who are scaling. You need a brand that can carry the weight of growth. You want a strategic partner who asks the right questions, not an order-taker who waits for instructions.

Marketing professionals and managers at established companies. You have brand standards, internal stakeholders, and real deadlines. You need a studio that integrates cleanly with your workflow and delivers work that does not need babysitting.

Agencies that need extended creative support. When your team is at capacity and you need a trusted creative partner to handle the overflow, we step in. We work quietly behind the scenes, matching your quality standards and protecting your client relationships.

Our clients are based in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the UAE, Singapore, and around the world. We have built brands for healthcare providers, professional services firms, product companies, and B2B businesses across these markets.

What we do: brand identity and strategy, marketing design, web design and development, and motion and animation.

Our Approach

How We Work

Every project follows the same five-stage process. We move efficiently. We do not skip steps.
01

Understand

We learn your business, market, and goals before we touch a file. The brief is the foundation. We get it right before we build.

02

Explore

We test directions, push ideas, and pressure-test options. You see our thinking, not just the output.

03

Craft

We obsess over the details until the work earns its place. Every element is intentional.

04

Deliver with Clarity

You get your files and the context to use them confidently. Not just a ZIP folder.

05

Grow Together

For ongoing clients, we evolve with your brand over time. The work compounds.

Our Quality Promise

Every project goes through multiple review checkpoints before you see it. Not because we are slow. Because good work does not happen by accident.

What We Stand For

Our Values

Collaboration

Your success is our success. We lead, learn, and grow together.

Integrity

We do what we say we will do. Our word is our bond.

Innovation

We keep learning so our work keeps improving. Always.

Empathy

We measure success by the value we bring to your business.

Passion

We go beyond the brief. Every single time.

Gratitude

We are genuinely thankful for every project and every client.

The Team

Meet Your Team

Gideon Ray Wagas

Founder & Creative Director

Gideon founded Pugo Design Studio in December 2013. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Advertising and has accumulated over 100 international design contest wins, most of them in logo and brand identity.

He leads creative direction across all three flocks and handles every client discovery conversation personally.

Gen Rose Pangilinan

Studio Manager & Client Manager Lead

Gen is the studio’s operational backbone. She manages timelines, workloads, and client communication so every project stays on track and every client always knows what is happening next.

Dorethy Marie Pangilinan

Account Manager

Clive Hermosilla

Marketing Manager

Genevic Habagat

Inbound Digital Marketing Specialist

Chreslyr Topacio Eliot

Client Success Manager

Gilcy Yanna Wagas

Creative Lead, Branding Flock

Yanna co-founded Pugo alongside Gideon and has led the Branding Flock since the studio’s earliest days. She brings strong design fundamentals and strategic thinking to every brand identity project the studio takes on.

Keshia Tamidles

Graphic Designer

Valerie Demecillo

Multimedia Designer

Fritz Wagas

Creative Lead, Multimedia Flock

Fritz grew up drawing characters and never stopped. Today he channels that lifelong passion into brand storytelling through illustration, animation, and motion design.

If a project needs to come to life visually, Fritz makes it happen.

Axel Rod Makipig

Multimedia Designer

Vandolph Ferrer

Graphic Designer

Tristan Dunque

Creative Lead, Web Flock
Tristan leads web design and development across the studio. He builds websites that are beautiful, functional, and built to perform across every device and context.

Judy Monterde

Web Developer and Designer

Matthias Laurence Villarino

Graphic Designer

Our Vision

To make Pugo the first name that comes to mind when businesses need design, and the place designers aspire to be, setting the standard for how great work is created, delivered, and experienced.

Our Mission

We help businesses move forward with clarity and confidence through design that’s thoughtful, strategic, and built to work, so they can focus on growing, not managing the process.
What Clients Say

Trusted by brands across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, UAE, and beyond.

The Pugo Design Studio team are a dream to work with. The level of professionalism and dedication and creative skill they have is unprecedented. They always meet deadlines and the level of thought and creativity that goes into every deliverable is exceptional. They have built the Follicle Labs brand from scratch, and their methodical approach makes your job easier and leaves little room for error.
Dr. Alan John, CEOFollicle Labs, Australia
My first experience working with Gideon was in 2024, one of the best experiences I've had as I build brands. Not only do they get your concept but they walk you through it all giving you all the support you need. Fast forward to 2026, I came back for another business I'm about to launch. I would 1000 percent recommend their services regardless of where you are in the world.
Vengo Writing
Pugo is a valued design partner. Easy communication, fast turnaround time, and impactful creative support. Very efficient and capable graphic design studio.
Dave MognerRadiology LTD

Questions we get asked a lot.

Have more questions?

Check our services or drop us a message.

Where is Pugo Design Studio based?

We are based in Cebu, Philippines. Our team works remotely with clients across the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the UAE, Singapore, and around the world. Time zone overlap is not a barrier. We have been doing this since 2013.
We are a full-service branding and creative agency. We handle brand identity and strategy, marketing design, web design and development, and motion and animation. We work as a complete creative partner, not a vendor you brief and forget.
We work with business owners who are building or scaling, and marketing professionals at established companies who need a reliable creative partner. Our clients come from healthcare, professional services, technology, e-commerce, and B2B sectors across multiple industries.
Pugo runs as a studio of 10 to 20 people. We have three specialized teams: the Branding Flock, the Multimedia Flock, and the Web Flock. Each is led by a dedicated Creative Lead. You work with a focused team, not a rotating roster of freelancers.
Most of our clients are in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the UAE. We structure our communication around clear briefs, async updates, and scheduled calls. Gideon handles every discovery call personally. His calendar is open to any working hours globally. We find the overlap that works for both sides and go from there.
Both. We offer project-based work for brands that need focused deliverables, and monthly retainers for businesses that want a consistent creative partner. Our retainer model is called a Flight Plan. It is built for teams who need steady, high-quality creative output without managing a full in-house team.
No. We do not do spec work. Our process starts with a paid discovery or a scoped brief. If you want to evaluate our capabilities first, we offer a paid design test. This protects the quality of the work and respects both parties’ time.
Send us an email or book a discovery call with Gideon. Both work. Tell us about your brand, your goals, and what you need. We will get back to you quickly with an honest take on how we can help. No pressure, no pitch deck.
We were founded in December 2013. Over a decade of consistent work, growing from a small team in a Cebu apartment to a full studio serving clients on six continents. The track record is real.
We are organized like a studio, not an agency. Three specialized flocks, each led by a Creative Lead who owns the work. Every project goes through our quality checkpoint process before it reaches you. And Gideon stays involved in every project. You are not handed off to a junior team after the sale.

Ready to Build Something that Performs?

Whether you’re starting a rebrand, building from scratch, or evolving what you have, the first step is a conversation.

Let's Talk
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