77percent™

those design shops i listed were founded as is and have made a name for themselves by doing what they do best

most of the design shops around are like that
generally anything bigger than that, creativity gets squashed by bureaucracy ; precisely why bigger companies tend to spend so much money on external design shops when they could easily afford the capital necessary to run one themselves for significantly less

any big design shops actually tend to subcontract design contracts from clients .. merely acting as a middle man and picking up a healthy commission

surely M$’s in house design crew [used very little nowadays because M$ is trying to up their image with nicer graphics] won’t take someone fresh off the streets of california whose clothes still hold the fresh scent of berkely weed .. of course who in hell would want to work for M$’s in house design crew since all they’re doing is designing the invites for bill gates’ daughter’s birthday party (that honestly is all that they trust their in-house guys with)
they will find some other big company to find them a good quality small company [often as small as a few people working in a close group] who have a nice portfolio and won’t mind working indirectly for the devil himself

all of the real design shops where they actually design stuff and real artists work are usually small teams and in some rare cases, individuals.