WHY I'M A DESIGNER:
I started up up creative in search of that sometimes-elusive creative high. That feeling you get when you put something new out into the world and share it with others and they love it and they tell you so.
For awhile I got that feeling as a student working on bizarre arguments in her bizarre dissertation (the weirder and more out there the argument, the more charged I got about it). But bizarre-ness isn't particularly coveted or satisfying in academia and I found myself turning into a creative junkie - you know the kind - the person who skips out on her real work just for the chance to make something.
I believe that we all have a creative drive, that it's elemental to our being.
We get it from creating, of course, but we also get it in other ways. From finding and giving the most excellent, perfect, creative gift. From finding something that is so perfectly US that we can barely believe it.
Creating and finding awesomeness feels good.
I am your creative proxy, if you will. Your dealer in creative highs. I put awesomeness into the world for you to find and share. I help you create what you want. What you need.
I'm a designer because I need to make things to feel normal.
And I'm a designer because design happens to be the method of making that I'm best at.
I'm a designer because I know how to take your ideas and desires and turn them into things we can share with the world. And I know how to make you feel like doing that is easy. (It's not always easy, but I strive to make you feel like it is. My previous clients will confirm this.)
BACKSTORY: THE PRESS RELEASE VERSION
Up Up Creative is an independent design studio and print shop based in Rochester, NY. I strive to make people happy by providing them just the thing they always wanted or saying just the thing they wish they could say. My work is clean but colorful; simple but with a sense of humor; bold but still understated. I'm crazy for typography, unexpected color palettes, hand-illustrated pattern designs, and white space. I love working with clients so if you're in need of a custom design (for your wedding, your event, your business, etc.), I'm your girl.
My designs and products have been featured in major media outlets including BRIDES magazine, Eco-Beautiful Weddings, DesignMom, Etsy's Storque, Decor8, The Happiness Project, Paper Crave, Apartment Therapy, and Gifted Magazine. Folks in the paper industry may also have seen me and my work featured in various trade publications, including Giftware News, Stationery Trends, and Stationery Today.
ABOUT THE SHOP NAME:
Fifteen months old at the time and always eager to express his wants with what limited vocabulary he possessed, my son named the shop. I asked him one day what I should call my little store and he said, “Up up?” Sure, what he really wanted was to be picked up, but as moms will do I pretended he was answering my question. The more I thought about it, though, the more I really liked it. So positive. So personal (because it’s what Evan is always saying). So easy to remember. It just fit.
A ONCE AND FUTURE PASSION:
My introduction to design was through my undergraduate degree in communication systems and technology. In my program, we studied human-computer interaction (how people actually use computers) and so much of what we talked about pertaining to communication had to do with visual communication. I was immediately taken in by the idea that the way something looks contributes to its meaning and to its function. It took me about ten years after I began in that program to really come around to this as a career. I did some freelance web design in my early twenties and also worked as an IT consultant and web programmer before returning to graduate school in English (I have always had a romantic attachment to books and I always thought I’d prefer teaching literature to undergraduates than teaching oral comm., thus the switch in fields for graduate school). It wasn’t until I was neck-deep in my dissertation that I suddenly found myself needing to make things all the time, and even then it took about a year for me to develop my craft and to find my own voice and style.