We were lucky to catch up with Tessa Franchini recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tessa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

At the start, it was just the two of us, a lot of coffee, and a small private office in a collaborative woodworking studio in Seattle. We were surrounded by creative people making things with their hands, which felt fitting since we were building something, too, just in a different way.

It took us a while to realize that if we wanted Paxson Fay to grow, we’d need to grow a team. About two years in, we began hiring contractors to assist with various projects. Five years after launching, we hired our first full-time employee, which was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. She’s still with us today and now leads many of our accounts. Watching her grow alongside the company has been one of the most rewarding parts of this journey.

Initially, we didn’t have a clear sense of the roles we needed; we just knew we needed people who were flexible, curious, and willing to jump in wherever needed. Over time, we learned that it wasn’t just about finding support for our work; it was about finding people who could take ownership, bring fresh ideas, and help us step back to focus on the bigger picture. That shift — hiring senior team members who could lead alongside us — changed everything. It allowed us to think more strategically and intentionally about our business.

We also invested in creating a detailed team handbook to help us translate what was once just in our heads into systems and processes that everyone could learn from. It’s still evolving today.

If we were starting over now, we’d probably hire sooner, train more systematically, and build our network faster. But in hindsight, growing slowly and intentionally was the right move. We scaled at a pace that maintained our culture’s strength and ensured our business’s sustainability, and that’s something we’re truly proud of.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We are the co-founders of Paxson Fay, a communications agency dedicated to elevating architects, designers, and creative brands, helping them tell their stories and reach the audiences who matter most.

Amy started her career in advertising at CNN and the Hallmark Network before getting her MBA at Seattle University. Experience that gave her an understanding of how to run a business and how the world of paid media works. Tessa worked in marketing and communications in the architecture industry early on, so we combined our collective experience and started Paxson Fay. We’ve both always loved writing and storytelling, and have always been drawn to creative people.

Early on, we collaborated with designers and makers who were producing incredible work but didn’t always know how to share it effectively. We realized how powerful good storytelling can be in helping creative businesses grow, not by changing what they do, but by allowing the world to see it through their eyes. That’s really how Paxson Fay started.
We’re now celebrating 10 years, and our work spans public relations, social media strategy, award and thought-leadership support, and strategic brand communications. Our clients include architects, designers, developers, artists, and product manufacturers: individuals and teams creating spaces, materials, and ideas that enhance our environments.

What sets us apart is that we lead with a desire for authentic connection, whether that’s with our team, our clients, editors, or our community. We’re a small team, and we care deeply about the people behind the work, not just the results they produce. We’ve built long-standing partnerships with clients who share our values of creativity, curiosity, and collaboration. And because we focus specifically on design, we understand the nuances of the industry from the media landscape to the storytelling rhythm that comes with long project timelines.

We’re proud of many things: the growth of our team, the clients we’ve supported from their initial launches to national recognition, and the culture we’ve built that values flexibility, balance, and purpose. But mostly, we’re proud that we’ve stayed true to our original mission: to celebrate undiscovered design and creativity with the world by championing the passions of good people.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Maintaining high morale starts with building a sense of purpose and trust. Our work is creative, fast-paced, and often demanding, so we’ve learned that people do their best work when they feel supported and have space for their lives outside of it.

We’ve built a culture that values flexibility and balance because we know that creativity doesn’t happen when people are burned out. Our team works in the office two days a week and remotely the rest of the time. We offer unlimited vacation, and after three years, team members can even work abroad for extended periods. We also remain flexible when people need to work from other locations, allowing them to travel or spend time with their families and friends.

We’ve found that giving people autonomy and trust leads to accountability and loyalty in return. The other key piece is purpose; we try to align our work with what inspires us. We can’t always choose every project, but we prioritize clients and stories that feel connected to our mission: showing the world great design that might otherwise go unseen. We built a team that supports and relies on each other, and the trust between our team members also creates a beautiful sense of purpose. Of course, we are here for our clients, but that sense of what you bring to your teammates is really fulfilling.
That sense of meaning, paired with flexibility and trust, has been the foundation of our culture and what keeps morale strong year after year.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

From the beginning, our mission has been to share good design with the world. Not just from well-known firms, but from emerging voices doing thoughtful, beautiful work that wasn’t yet getting the recognition it deserved. We’ve always believed that great design shouldn’t stay local or unseen, and that every studio, regardless of size, deserves the opportunity to have its story told.

We started by working with both established companies and those earlier in their growth, helping them find their voice and get their work in front of national audiences. Many of those early projects gained strong media attention, and word started to spread organically from there. Most of our new business now comes through referrals and clients hearing about us “through the grapevine” from editors, peers, or past collaborators who’ve seen the results of our work.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that reputation grows from relationships. We’ve built ours by being intentional about who we work with and why. We choose clients whose values align with ours, who inspire us creatively, and with whom we genuinely enjoy partnering. Those authentic relationships with clients, editors, and others in the design community have been the foundation of our growth and the reason our name continues to circulate in the industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.paxsonfay.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paxsonfay/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paxsonfay/
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/company/paxson-fay/

Image Credits

Rafael Soldi