We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ryan And Sara DeVere a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ryan and Sara, appreciate you joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

Yes, we feel abundantly grateful to be able to earn a full-time living from our creative work! It didn’t happen overnight, and the journey looked different for each of us.

For Sara, the path started early. She sold her first photograph at 14 in a local art gallery, booked her first paid portrait shoot at 17, and went full-time as a freelance photographer at 19, primarily shooting senior portraits and weddings. For many years, it was a solo effort, but when we got married in 2014, Ryan joined in, and less than two years later we were both working full-time together in the photography business.

Ryan’s turning point was more of a wake-up call. In late 2015, we experienced a tragic loss in the family that caused us to re-evaluate everything. For Ryan, that meant a mindset shift from “keep your head down until you retire” to “life’s too short to make things that aren’t beautiful.” He began with storytelling, then illustration, then design. His creative path has since evolved into brand design, web development, SEO, business strategy, and beyond.

Over the years, we’ve flowed in and out of full-time creative income. Sometimes we supplemented with other work, other times we ran lean. In 2019, Sara was experiencing major burnout and took a day job to make space for artistic expression again, while Ryan focused on building DeVere Creative. In 2023, she joined the agency full-time, and we haven’t looked back since!

Some of the biggest milestones along the way were:

– Learning not to do everything ourselves. Sara’s burnout taught us the value of boundaries, support systems, and building a team before you’re in crisis mode.

– Shifting from “hunting” to “farming.” We stopped chasing cold leads and instead focused on building relationships in our local community. That intentional sowing is now bearing fruit in the form of aligned, qualified clients.

– Charging a blueprint fee for strategy upfront. This change helped us better qualify leads, protect our time, and provide value from the very first interaction.

Looking back, yes, we probably could have sped things up with more clarity, mentorship, or better systems early on. But we’re thankful for every step (even the messy ones) that shaped who we are and how we serve our community. Our goal is to run a business rooted in connection, curiosity, creativity, and helping others thrive.

Ryan and Sara, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We’re Ryan and Sara DeVere, the husband-and-wife team behind DeVere Creative, a small creative agency with a big heart for helping businesses show up well online. We help close the gap between the quality of a business’s services and how they actually present online through thoughtful branding, effective (and beautiful) websites, and targeted marketing that’s built to work. At our core, we believe that every business has the potential to make a meaningful impact and we help them extend that invitation with clarity and confidence.

We didn’t get here overnight. Sara’s background is in photography and visual storytelling; Ryan’s is in strategic thinking and design. Over time, we discovered how well our strengths align. While we both operate in the world of art, design, and communication, we approach problems from two very different angles—Sara brings emotional depth and language; Ryan brings strategy and structure. Ryan designs the logo mark; Sara brings it to life with color and voice. He reads the data; she crafts the words. It’s very much a blend of heart and brain, and that balance shows up in everything we create.

One thing we’ve noticed over and over again is that small business owners are usually great at telling you what they do in person but they often struggle to translate that same clarity and energy online. Their digital presence ends up feeling like a funhouse mirror version of their real business–distorted, off, and not quite capturing who they are. We help bring that image back into focus so the heart of the business shines through everywhere it shows up.

When we build a brand identity, we don’t just “design a logo.” We dig deep. We spend extensive time getting to know the business, who they are, what they value, where they’ve been, and where they’re going. Then we translate that into a visual and verbal identity that feels true, from the colors, typography, and photography style, to the messaging, taglines, and tone of voice. It’s crafted to resonate both internally and externally, to guide the brand, and inspire its audience.

Our websites are designed with the same intentionality. They’re rooted in the brand strategy, built to perform well technically (think page speed, mobile-friendliness, SEO), but they’re also human. We design for flow, which is the actual journey someone takes through the site, so that the right person finds the right information at the right time and feels compelled to take action.

After the brand and website are built, we offer ongoing marketing support, such as SEO optimization, PPC advertising, email campaigns, and social media strategy. These aren’t one-size-fits-all services, as we tailor them to the business’s goals, season, and capacity, always with long-term growth and goals in mind.

What we feel really sets us apart is not only the technical skillset, but the way we hold space for our clients. We don’t take on projects we can’t invest in fully, and we don’t treat people like numbers. We genuinely care about helping people be seen, heard, and known, and we design every element of their brand to help them offer that same experience to their customers. No more funhouse mirrors!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

This past year has been our strongest yet, and we can point directly to one major shift: focusing on hyper-local growth and joining surrounding referral networks.

We’ve been intentional about showing up consistently, not just as business owners, but as people, getting to know others in our community, helping them understand what we do, and how to refer us well. Every week, we clearly present what makes a great referral for us and offer light education around branding, marketing, or web presence. That combination of clarity, consistency, and value has helped turn our network into an extension of our sales team, and the results speak for themselves in that our leads are stronger, and our conversion rate is higher than ever.

Behind the scenes, we’ve had two major mindset shifts that have shaped how we grow:

1. From Hunting to Farming.
This was some of the best advice we’ve received, passed along by a veteran networker who’s been in the game for decades. Instead of cold calls, blind mailers, or random pitches, we’ve shifted to planting seeds intentionally. We show up in our referral groups, share our knowledge, serve our peers, and build trust. It takes longer, but the relationships are deeper and the results are better. It’s less transactional and more way more relational.

2. People Buy People.
At the end of the day, clients aren’t just buying branding or web design, they’re buying the relationship, the trust, the way they feel working with us. We are the face and voice of our brand, and we’ve leaned into that. Getting in front of people, sharing our real experiences (both as people and business owners), and showing up with empathy and integrity has made a big difference in how we’re remembered and recommended.

Growing our creative business isn’t just about visibility, it’s about connection, and we’ve found that being deeply rooted in our local community and showing up consistently as ourselves has been the most effective and sustainable way to grow. Surprisingly, this local-first approach has also led to the furthest reach we’ve ever had as strong connections introduce us to their connections, and the ripple effect carries well beyond our backyard.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Inherently, our work is often misunderstood—or even invisible—to non-creatives. What we do lives in the space between what people feel and what they can articulate. Our job is to bring the subconscious into the conscious. And the tricky part is you don’t know what you don’t know!

We’re translating shape and color psychology, emotions, and non-verbal communication into tangible outcomes like visual identity, marketing strategy, user flow, and messaging. It’s a lot like body language in that before you ever say a word, you’re already communicating something. Branding works the same way. It’s not just a logo or a website. It’s the feeling people get about a business, often before they even realize they’re feeling it.

One of our favorite moments is when a client has that “ah-ha” moment as the strategy, visuals, and messaging click into place and they see their brand clearly for the first time. It’s not that they were doing anything wrong before, they just didn’t know how much was being lost in translation. And now, suddenly, they feel equipped, clear, confident, and empowered to move forward with purpose to actually affect their community in the way they always dreamed of.

To us, that’s the magic of creative work. It’s not about making things pretty, it’s about making things work on every level – emotionally, strategically, and beautifully.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://deverecreative.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deverecreative
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Deverecreative
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/devere-creative

Image Credits

Studio Photos: Karen Keller Photography
Family Photo: Picselated Photography
All Others: DeVere Creative