about me and my work

Hopefully, my work speaks for itself. But perhaps you want to know a little bit more about me and how I work.

summary

My name is Rebecca Marshall. I am Dallas-based graphic designer, having moved here from St. Louis after 22 years, specializing in logos and branding, print and web design, visual marketing and digital strategy for small businesses.

Why do I love small businesses? Well, truthfully, I like all businesses, regardless of size, but I think I'm particularly well-suited to work with small businesses for two reasons:

I love what I do. I am passionate about finding the right solutions for my clients. And it's pretty likely that as a small-business owner, you are really passionate about your business, too, and want someone who can match your level of excitement and passion.

I offer a wide range of services. Some designers focus on print or web. Some web designers focus just on designing an attractive site. I offer holistic services, all without the overhead of a company that employs several people:

  • organization of information,
  • accessibility of relevant information,
  • a professional look that reflects your brand's personality,
  • building and implemention of a site, and
  • create collateral materials like postcards, publications, advertising, etc., for you.

For a more complete list of what I offer, please see my list of services.

education and training

From the moment I found out at age 15 that I could make a career as a graphic designer, I have been passionately pursuing it. More of my life has been spent in love with design than not.

My education focused on print design: composition and use of typography. But throughout my career, I have realized that technical challenges, and organization and heirarchy of information were equally as important to me as composition and typography. So I asked to be transitioned to the roster of web work. And I loved it. It's how my mind works. To find like pieces of information and put them together, to organize infomation so that users can find it, to create something visually appealing, and to build it... it all makes my inner-nerd a little giddy.

Don't get me wrong—I still love print-based graphic design, too. I apply many of the same principles of information architecture to my print design.

process

Each project is unique and may vary from this process. This is meant to give an general idea of what to expect. If you have any questions about this, please contact me.

Generally, the first thing I do is to take a look at what you already have. This gives me an opportunity to do an objective assessment of your existing materials and make notes of what I think works well and where I would suggest some changes.

Then I set this aside and we have a meeting. This meeting is designed to:

  • see your passion for your business,
  • learn how your business started, the current state of the business, and what your hopes are for the future
  • gauge the personality of your business
  • outline your goals for this project
  • discuss what pieces and approaches might be appropriate

The answers to these questions allow me to create a creative brief that is comprehensive and ensures that your expectations and my finished products are mutually understood. Following this meeting, I will put together a proposal/estimate and send it to you. Generally I ask for 1/3 of the estimate total upfront as a commitment fee.

Then I begin working on your project. For more complex projects, we may have additional meetings to discuss certain aspects of the project in more detail.

Once concepts are ready, we will meet so I can present them to you. Since this is generally the halfway point of most projects, another 1/3 payment is due at this point.

We will go through changes, if needed, until I receive final approval.

I will then provide the final product(s) (or if you prefer buzzwords, the "deliverables") to you or third party vendor. This could be supplying a final file to a printer, uploading a website, or sending you final ready-to-use files, depending on the type of project. The third and final payment is due.