Laure Joliet is a longtime friend and colleague—in fact, she’s one of the first people I met in my creative journey many moons ago. She never ceases to inspire me in her ability to be reflective in the midst of a growing and demanding career. And while her professional body of work is truly outstanding, […]

When it comes to branding and design, most business owners want a solution that is fast and long-lasting. But design is about so much more than concept and execution. In my work with our clients at Marbury, I’ve found that a holistic approach to designing and planning a brand that lasts takes time. As designers, […]

When we first start our businesses, we’re typically overflowing with passion and interest. We’re very much “in the trenches”, focused on bringing a dream to life. We learn a lot, test everything, and fail fast. And as our specific ideas get clarified, many creative entrepreneurs have a tendency to move their business in the direction […]

Personally, I’ve seen this invoke a lot of fear around change, progression, and general growth in many businesses that I’ve worked with. The desire to take more risks is there, but so is the fear of losing their audience. So how do we, as creative entrepreneurs, allow ourselves to grow a business that we love […]

Especially if you’re just starting out with a new business or venture, I believe that creating space for sustainable self-care practices is key. This way, when your ideas start to take off and you’re drawn into the hustle of entrepreneurship, you’ll already have what you need to make space for yourself. I strive to do […]

Trust me when I say: you are not alone in this. One of my favorites for overcoming this obstacle is Stephen Covey’s First Things First. (He also wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.) Time management principles from the pros In First Things First, Covey shares his time management matrix, which is essentially a […]

At the root of it, I believe, is a scarcity mindset that there’s a finite number of clients interested in us, and we cannot pass up any of those opportunities since new ones won’t come along. But believing in abundance is crucial to achieving balance in business. Here are a few steps I’ve been taking […]

How did you get started in business? I took the leap into a creative career immediately after graduating from college in 2008. I had trouble finding full-time work where I was living in Portland, Oregon, but I was creating fine art prints from a co-operative printmaking studio in my free time. To help cover my […]

In fact, I think that it’s the root cause of the anxiety that the modern creative entrepreneur experiences on a day-to-day basis. While there are obviously larger and more important stressors involved in running a business, social media and taking in the highlight reels of other business owners is a daily, constant trigger of comparison […]

As an example, I personally took time off recently to travel Scandinavia. While I technically wasn’t working, the journey reignited my creativity in such a multitude of ways that even once I’d returned home, I craved ways to recapture that feeling in different ways, one of which was music. This latest playlist is an amalgamation […]

It’s one thing to stay creative and inspired, but as a creative professional, it’s also important to keep your skills and strategies sharp enough to implement your work—especially in a field like design where it can feel like things are evolving every day. In addition to foundational work like reading books, getting outside, and seeking […]

Instead of glossing over the details of my travels to focus on the impact they had on Marbury, today’s post is all about stopping and taking in the sights. These were some of the most interesting and beautiful things and places I saw on my Scandinavian adventures, and if you ever get the chance to […]

Between Scandinavia’s visual inspiration and the opportunity to rest and recharge, my mind felt like it was going haywire with new ideas. In many ways, I think that travel is essential for all creatives—even if it’s just an hour car ride away—and the following reasons are just a sampling of why. It reactivates the observer […]

However, we all have a backlog of countless internal tasks on our mind that need to be handled so that we can focus our energy in the most effective way possible. To begin taking those items off your own plate and delegating them to a team, you can prepare to expand by doing the following: […]

A turning point in my entrepreneurial mindset came about three years ago, but if it hadn’t, I can’t help but think that I would have continued down a very unhealthy path, both for myself and the wellbeing of the business. Today, this business may be infused with work-life balance, but you’ll see that a lot […]

My own opinion lies somewhere in the middle—that running a successful business takes a combination of finding something that you love, and something that makes money. And as for passion’s exact place? It’s more complicated than you might initially think. Here are a few things I’ve found helpful when it comes to searching for passion […]