I recently sat down at a coffee chat with a networking buddy, and he hits me with this bombshell: his friend quoted what could only be described as a small fortune to do his logo design. His disbelief was evident, which led me to drop my own bombshell: I wouldn't do a logo design for less than three times that amount. Cue the disbelief and raised eyebrows. Let me be clear, you don't need a crazy expensive logo to get the job done if it's not worth the price tag to you. But it is important to recognize that a logo isn't just a doodle. It's the face of your business, and that's worth a bit more than pocket change. Here’s why I charge what I do for a well-crafted logo design.

When I moved to Denver, I was terrified to enter the field as a newbie graphic designer. I knew how saturated the city was with multiple design schools spewing out amazingly talented people every year, while I was mostly self-taught and fairly inexperienced (I even considered going back to school to get some sort of degree or certificate to prove I knew what I was doing). Now I've got over a decade living + working here under my belt, so I feel pretty confident in what I’m doing. And I can say that while there definitely are tons of designers in the Denver market, doing your due diligence to find the right one for you will pay off in the end.

HERE ARE MY TOP TIPS FOR HIRING A BRAND + WEBSITE DESIGNER IN DENVER TO MAKE YOUR PROJECT A SUCCESS.

Every once in awhile an email floats into my inbox asking me about how to get started freelancing. “Where do you get your clients from? How do you price your services? What’s the most important skill you’ve learned?” All great questions and I love to answer them when I have the time. So, I thought I’d put together some of my thoughts and give you my (possibly unsolicited) advice on getting started as a freelancer.

Just when I thought we were getting out of the hellacious year that 2021 was, my family was hit with Covid and over three weeks of isolation without childcare. Funny how when you run your own business and you’re the one doing nearly everything, it’s really hard to recover from that. Extending deadlines can feel like knocking down dominoes, and I’m only now finally feeling like I’m able to poke my head out again. But it’s made me think about how grateful I am to my past self for setting up templates + processes for almost everything in my business so I can partially go on auto pilot.

I’ve spoken about it and gave workshops on it before, but I don’t think I’ve ever put it down in writing on my blog. So, today I’m talking to you again about how to use and develop processes in your small business.

Last month I wrote a post about the 3 Tools I Use Every Day To Run My Business and I got so many responses letting me know how you were able to start streamlining your processes with these online services. I loved hearing your great feedback so much that today I'm sharing 3 more online tools that I use on a regular basis to help run my business smoothly. And you're in for a treat because these ones are all FREE! Let's dive in.

“Your prices gave me a bit of sticker shock, to be honest.“

“I can’t justify spending thousands and not walking away with physical items.“

“Well I can find someone else to do the exact same thing cheaper.“

These are all things I’ve heard from people during consult calls for my branding services. I think tact sometimes goes out the window when it comes to talking about money, but I get it. My services are expensive. Not as expensive as some, but more expense than others. And I’m not planning to lower them anytime soon because I know exactly what goes into those services. Creating a strategic, intentional brand from scratch is one of the hardest parts of building your marketing toolkit. It’s so much harder than throwing together 264 different looking graphics just because the templates are available on Canva. So let me break down some of the maybe unseen value that you’re getting when you book a brand package with an experienced designer (like me!).

I’ve been having conversations with clients and doing research into accessibility + ADA compliance for small business websites. Sounds super exciting, right? Well whether it’s exciting or not, it's important. So I wanted to share some of the things I’m learning and 5 easy accessibility upgrades you can make to your web design so that together we can all pitch in to help the online world become a more accessible place.

It’s that time of year. No, not the most wonderful time of the year. The time of year when my schedule starts slowing down and I start reflecting because we’re going into the new year.