We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kimberley Moten. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kimberley below.

Kimberley, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?

It all started when I was attending classes at Hinds Community College as a Computer Science major. I was 19 at the time and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. When I was walking from my dorm, and on the way to one of my classes, out of nowhere, I have plethora of flashbacks of younger me creating PowerPoints during high school, admiring billboard ads and store posters as a kid, and doodling/making arts and crafts in elementary school. Within that moment, I realize that I wanted to major in art, specifically graphic design.

Once classes was over, I went to my advisor and had my major changed. Fast forward to over a year later, I had the random idea to become a freelance graphic designer and start my business. At the time, I didn’t really have much design experience as I didn’t know anyone in my family or in the community that were graphic designers. Despite this, I was brainstorming a bunch of names until I decided to name my business a short version of a nickname my grandmother gave me growing up: Chocolate Mocha. So, In July 2018, I officially created my freelance graphic design business, which is named CocoMocha, right out of my aunt’s basement in Wisconsin my junior year of college. However, I didn’t have quite the knowledge to register it as a sole proprietorship yet.

Within that time, I’ve took note of everything I learned, practiced outside of class, and got better. I spent a lot of time researching pricing and branding tactics, redesigning logos, understanding the huge differences between brand identity vs visual identity, brainstorming new concepts, and becoming the designer I wished to be and see. Even now, it’s interesting because around that time I discovered an email that I sent a teacher predicting that I was going to be a graphic designer when I was 15.

For me, I had to get over my imposter syndrome and realize that you’ll never know unless you try. On top of it, visual appeal is everywhere all around us within the products that we use or the things that we pass by every day. Later on, I had a better understanding by researching business essentials and taking a small business finance class during my senior year of college. That helped my business a lot to understand the financial backing of a small business.

Kimberley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hey, y’all! My name is Kimberley Moten. I’m a freelance graphic designer from the Mississippi Delta. I have a freelance graphic design business called CocoMocha.

I got into my industry when I was college. However, I felt in love with graphic design when I was a teenager.

For services, I provide visual & brand identity, marketing/advertising design, publication design, and social media graphics for businesses, content creators and more. My designs are a solution to clients’ issues of wanting to execute ideas, create brands, and producing meaningful products for events, campaigns, etc., but not knowing how to go about it.

As a designer, I’m professional, yet goofy as times, but I’m extremely big on reassurance as a designer as I care for their goals and ideals as if it those goals were my own. I don’t view design as solely a mean of income, but an act of servitude as I’m helping others through design. What I’m proud most is being able to create designs not just within my city, but outside of it as well as I’ve created designs for brands, such as the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition’s organization LEAD-In, Chicago based street wear company 3rd Lane, Texas based convention Dream Con, and more.

The main thing I want people to know is despite me coming off as shy, I take my craft very serious and handle every project as if it were my very own logo. I love bringing people’s ideas to life. Seeing my clients happy makes me happy.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think somethings that non-creatives should understand is the reality that not just graphic designers, but other art creatives pour a lot of time and energy into their work. There have been moments where I’ll be on the computer for hours researching and brainstorming ideas for people’s designs. I’ve stayed up sometimes until I made the perfect mood board or found ideas for said design. There’s other times where you have traditional artists, such as painters, sculptors, etc., that spend hours at their canvas.

For example, whenever I design some thing, I always ask my client to give me specifications on what they’re looking for in the design. After telling me the details, I imagine it in the back of my mind, and I immediately start doing a quick sketch. Then, I research and brainstorm and pick up cool ideas and tricks to incorporate and change within my original sketch. The longest time I’ve ever taken in my brainstorming process was almost 3 days to a week. But to be fair, I did have a bit of an art block on one of those days.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

So, there was a point in time where I had a really shaky living situation and an equally shaky laptop. One day, when I was working on a clients logo, my laptop crashed. So, I couldn’t use it for almost 3 days only to fix it a few days later. A few months later, I had the ability to have enough money to build my own computer in order to not only do schoolwork, but to be able to work on clients’ designs. Two years later, my PC stopped working — new parts and all.

So, as a result, I spent over 2 years pouring money into my computer to fix it. My main way of designing was my PC. I had to resort to using my MacBook IAir. I had to uninstall and reinstall one Adobe app at a time in order to use it and not have my laptop crash. But luckily, through some trial and error, I figured out what the main issue was and fixed my PC,

I experienced a lot of technical difficulties, being taken advantage as a designer, being looked down on by others, etc., but the mentality that I always had was that regardless of the circumstances, I pray, go strong, and rise above it. Design has the same story as some styles of design people speak negatively of, only for it to come back again even stronger at times.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://CocoMocha.myportfolio.com
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/itsccmcha
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/itsccmcha
• Other: https://TikTok.com/@tisccmcha