Current Graphic Design Project: Higher Ground Coffee Company

A fun recent client has been "Higher Ground Coffee Company," a mother-daughter startup
that needed a brochure and website to showcase their gourmet espresso machine service. (Please check out their website, www.hgcoffeeco.com for more details!)

Like many of my small business clients, they didn't need or want to invest thousands of dollars in a fancy website with all the bells and whistles, but they did feel they needed some sort of professional-looking presence on the web to refer their clients to.

This is where the Homestead service I offer provides such an affordable option for startups, small businesses and nonprofits.

They also needed a brochure, and wanted it quickly, so we used the Alternative Printshop in Santa Barbara. They offer excellent pricing and have proven to be a reliable option for short color runs with short turnarounds.

We've also put together tent cards for use at restaurants, and an informative flyer for their leave-behind package.

Sherry was great to work with and did a fabulous job of having all her images and text well prepared, which made it easy for me to put together quickly. I was also able to find some great free stock images that helped juice up her website & printed materials for no extra cost, which is a nice thing to be able to offer a startup on a tight budget.

It's personally very enjoyable for me to work with new businesses, who have so much enthusiasm and great ideas, and I'm happy to find creative ways for companies on tight budgets to get the most for their investment!

Great free stock photography site ~

I often have projects for print and the web that need a photo or two, but the client doesn't have a budget for pro or stock photography. Or I just need to try out some cool textures to layer into an illustration layout.

A super resource that I've come to rely on is Stock.Xchng -- a free stock photography and illustration sharing site. True, the selection and quality overall isn't as high as most of the paid stock photo sites, but more often than not I find an image that's perfect for what I'm working on... and you can't beat the price!

And if you like to dabble in photography or illustration, it's fun to upload some images and track how many times they're downloaded all over the world, and what sort of comments people post. (if you search hard enough, you might even find a few by yours truly...!)

I think it's also cool to have a place where creative folks can share some of our work and help each other out -- not just focus on making money.