We don't follow the standard, we elevate it.
Never settle.
Clarity over complexity
Good work should be as easy to understand as it is to appreciate. We thrive in the nuances of your world and refine relentlessly to deliver clarity.
Competence over credentials
Big challenges need experienced minds and talented hands. Our close-knit, senior-led team brings both to every project. The A-team, always.
Craft over convention
Work that stands apart requires tenacity. We pursue the heartbeat of your story and give it the care and craft that shortcuts can’t deliver.
From emerging companies to established names, we’re at home alongside good people, big ideas, and stories that need to take shape.
2008
An opening in ophthalmology
Eyetech gives a young, solo designer an opportunity to support Macugen as the anti-VEGF market rapidly changes. The work plants our earliest roots in retina, beginning relationships that would shape Steadfast for years to come.
2010
A challenge that set the bar
After two rebranding attempts with larger firms, The Retina Group of Washington puts its trust in a one-man shop. The result is a brand they still proudly carry, and the beginning of our commitment to never settle.
2014
Assembling the A-team
Our first creative director helps set the course for an experienced, in-house, U.S.-based team. Steadfast continues hiring for creative talent across the country, bringing the team together twice each year to focus on growth, friendships, and the caliber of the experience and product we deliver.
2017
Seeing the science through their eyes
Experience with practices grows into work for pharmaceutical and device brands. With an award-winning film featuring an artist living with wet AMD, Steadfast debuted a patient campaign at the largest annual eye convention showing what vision-saving technology means to the through the lens of the patients relying on it.
2021
Beyond the eye
Work with KardiaMobile, the #1 doctor-recommended EKG, brings Steadfast into cardiology, helping expand the brand’s reach from consumers to physicians and health systems. It also opens the door to new specialties, from neurovascular access to brain health and cognition.
2022
Bringing more expertise in-house
Acquiring a U.S.-based digital studio deepens our development capabilities and brings fresh creative perspective through clients beyond healthcare, including Ina Garten and the City of Virginia Beach, with its network of more than 90 sites.
2026
Back to Montreal
ASRS brings us back to Montreal, a city tied to the early days of anti-VEGF therapy. It’s a chance to reflect on how far the field has come and reconnect with the people who helped Steadfast grow alongside it.
Our Team
Taylor Tsantles
President / Founder
Kelly Phillips
Creative Director
Tori Allen
Director of People + Projects
Brittney Austin
Account Manager
Rebecca Lippert
Account Manager
Kayla Johnson
Design Lead
plus
Designers
Developers
Steadfast wasn’t formed out of a business blueprint, radical idea, or big-agency background. It took shape riding shotgun in a pharma salesman’s car. Interactions with doctors, patients, and staff opened a young man’s eyes to a complex world that needed both creativity and clarity.
That salesman was my dad. And as my tinkering in Photoshop turned into thoughts of opening shop, the first big opportunity came knocking.
In 2010, with a newly minted LLC, I took a seat in a boardroom surrounded by physicians leading The Retina Group of Washington (RGW), one of the nation’s foremost retina practices.
Two rebranding attempts with larger New York- and D.C.-based firms had fallen short. The ask was clear, but had proven hard to achieve: craft a new brand that captured the practice’s leading research program, clinical excellence, and national influence in a strong, recognizable mark.
The task felt daunting, but the start was simple...
I asked thoughtful questions that reached deeper into the essence of who they were, uncovering what previous efforts had failed to capture. In the six weeks that followed, I stayed in the creative trenches until that understanding took shape in a brand they immediately recognized as distinctly theirs… and still carry today.
Since that defining project, Steadfast has grown beyond the one-man operation into a team of seasoned creatives and strategists with that same commitment to never settle. We ask questions, dig into the details, and keep refining because understanding your story is only part of the job. Helping someone else understand it takes just as much care.
It’s work I’ll always love, alongside people I’m proud to put my name behind. Bring us your biggest challenge and we’ll see it through to work you’re proud to put your name behind, too.
The key to a successful partnership with an agency, I have found, is bridging the gap between the goals that we communicate and the creative that's produced. Here, Taylor and his team excels. They not only listened, but engaged in a thoughtful and collaborative process that kept our vision in focus and helped us transform complex materials into simple and captivating experiences.
