How I Got Here (the Long Way)

Since graduating with a BFA in Graphic Design, I’ve spent 14 years in the corporate design world.

I started in magazines, then moved to Dressbarn in women’s fashion retail, then got my hands dirty at an ad agency in Columbus, Ohio, working on retail clients. After agency life, I wanted to try something new, so I joined Thirty-One Gifts in their corporate marketing department. I’d always been curious about direct sales, and I wanted to see what it was like designing for both the consultant and the client. I really blossomed in that role, working across video, social, email, and website design, and even art directing several photoshoots throughout my four years there. That team became like family.

After I had my daughter, though, it was time for a change. Between Covid and navigating new-mom life, I wanted something familiar again, something that felt like my wheelhouse. Enter Lane Bryant. Women’s fashion has always been a love language for me. Empowering women while designing and creating, while also getting to express myself through the work, felt like a win-win.

By the time all of that was behind me, I realized I’d sat in almost every seat there is when it comes to building a brand. Branding and website design felt like the natural next step, one I’d always known I was headed toward. After my last contract with Lane Bryant, and with my daughter starting kindergarten, it felt like the right moment to make the leap.

Because somewhere in all that corporate life, I noticed the work I loved most wasn’t happening inside a big agency or an in-house retail team. It was happening in conversations, in the moments when a business owner who’d been building for two years, or didn’t know where to start, would light up talking about her business. I realized I was just as excited as she was, and I wanted to do whatever I could to help her turn that dream into a reality. Being a small part of how someone’s business gets received by their customers, watching them thrive in something they never thought possible, that’s what lit me up. I wanted to be that person’s cheerleader and help get them there.

So instead of letting the domain name I’d bought 14 years earlier keep sitting in the digital abyss, I dug it out and put it to use. Wishbone Design Studio was born.

Meet the Studio

Wishbone Design Studio is a branding and website design studio based in Charleston, South Carolina, where I grew up, built for small business owners and women-led brands who are ready to stop looking like a placeholder version of themselves online.

I work with you across three main paths, depending on where you’re starting:

• A brand that needs to catch up to who you’ve become (that’s the Brand Glow Up)

• A website that needs a home worthy of the brand you already love (that’s Wish Upon a Site)

• The whole thing, brand and website, built together from day one (that’s the Total Dream Package)

I also have Wishbone Weddings in the works, a sister brand for Charleston brides and destination weddings, because wedding websites deserve the same obsessive attention to detail as everything else on the big day. It’s not fully launched yet, but you can get on the list now, and I’ll have more to share soon.

Who I Built This For

Here’s who I built this studio for: The small business owner who has done the work. You’ve grown the thing. You’ve shown up for your clients, your customers, your community, even when your website or your logo didn’t quite match the version of your business that exists today.

You’re not looking for a template. You’re not looking for someone to hand you a Canva kit and wish you luck. You’re looking for a creative partner who actually wants to hear your story before we talk fonts. And thats exactly what Lindsay at Oceanside Cleaning was looking for when she connected with me.

So if that’s you too, I’m here for it! I want to learn everything about where you’ve come from, where you are now, and where you want to go. I can’t wait to cheer you on and help make something that truly feels like you.

Cue the Flashback…circa 2007

Yes, I’m a millennial, shocker, we’re everywhere. I was sitting in yearbook class, doing a download of the latest photos from an event I’d shot that week, about to lay them into spreads, when I thought, “is this something I could do forever?” My teacher walked me through what a graphic designer actually does, and I was sold.

From college and through my whole career since, I’ve had this uncanny pull toward thinking in the big picture, the full campaign, not just one piece of it. I never wanted to design just a logo, just an email, just a social graphic. I loved how everything worked together as one unit while still answering the specific job each piece had to do. That’s exactly what I love about what I’m doing now. Helping people piece it all together through branding, strategy, and then getting it out into the world on the web.

Let’s Be Friends

This blog is where I’ll be sharing everything from brand strategy and website tips to the occasional peek behind the studio curtain. If you’re new here, welcome. If you’re ready to see what Wishbone could do for your business, head over to the services page or let’s hop on a discovery call and talk it through.

No pressure, no pitch. Just good conversation.

Come dream with us.