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

Matt, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I worked as a Creative Director for large retail corporations for the majority of my career. I experienced a lot of success and reaped the rewards and perks that came with a Director role in Corporate America. I was able to provide for a family of four on a decent salary with good benefits which gave me piece of mind knowing we were in a stable financial position. But there was just one problem. I wasn’t fulfilled or happy going to work knowing I would be in meetings most of the day and not have enough time to focus on my true passion and the role I was hired to do, being creative. Many days I would run into conflicts with other associates and need to defend my point of view or even the work of my team. There were also times where I just couldn’t be myself and wear a ‘mask’ to give the impression I loved my job and the people I worked with. In 2022 l decided to leave my full-time job to open my own creative studio in North Carolina. This was by far the biggest risk I have taken in my career and personal life. No more job security. No more steady income. No more health or wealth benefits. After 30 years, I was finally in pursuit of my own happiness. It was time for me to take control of my career vs. someone always telling me what to do, when to do it and how to do it.

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?

My passion for art and design goes back as far as I can remember but accelerated in high school where I learned pottery, photography and fine arts. I actually earned my High School Letter in Art. I guess I was a creative athlete of some sort? Leaving High School I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the creative industry. I received my BA degree in Graphic Design from Columbia College Chicago where I met my now wife, Ingrid. She was studying Graphic Design as well. Long story short, we started dating and graduated together with honors in 1993. After college, I was in and out of small ad agencies but after a couple years into my career I landed a Graphic Designer position in the Marketing Department at Sears, Roebuck. That was the beginning of my corporate retail career. From there I spent eight years at Lowe’s headquarters and 10 years at La-Z-Boy headquarters. What sets me apart from other creative professions is years of building and managing teams as well experience working in and understanding of all mediums as it relates to the creative industry.

Today I am focusing my efforts on promoting small businesses, musicians, non-profits and artists. My approach is to take the road less traveled and come up with concepts and ideas that are unexpected, strike the eye and stand out from the competition. Our capabilities include branding, advertising, digital, social media, print, photography and video production. We take pride in the work we do knowing all the years of experience will manifest the best possible solution for our clients.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Managing a team is one of the most rewarding and one of the most accountable positions a supervisor can hold. The first thing I did when I was hired as the Creative Manger at Lowe’s Companies, was set up one-on-one meetings with all of my direct reports. When meeting with the Sr. Designer, she handed me two pieces of paper. On that printout was a list of all the challenges, issues and things wrong with the Marketing department. My first impression was, wow, is she just a disgruntled employee? Does she have anger issues or just ill tempered? Once I reviewed everything on the list in great detail, I was a bit shocked and understood why she was so discouraged. The creative team was being treated unfairly and did not have the power to make decisions or come to the table with new ideas. I went through that list one by one and made several changes to the satisfaction of the creative team and myself. Even seeing me defend them and my efforts to make changes helped morale, knowing I supported them and wanted them to know how their contributions made an impact on the company. For anyone managing teams my suggestions would be:
-Set clear expectations from the beginning
-Hold weekly staff meetings
-Have one-on-one meetings with each employee every week
-Give every employee stretch assignments and the opportunity to learn something new
-Get to know them personally, not just professionally
-Be empathetic to any concerns
-Don’t play favorites
-Make it fun and interactive! (team-building, happy hours, group critiques, etc.)

How’d you meet your business partner?

My extremely talented business partner is my wife of 27 years. As I mentioned earlier, we were both attending Columbia college at the time and had 2-3 classes together. I was single at the time and wasn’t really looking to get back into another relationship but there was something about her that stood out to me. She seemed smarter and more talented than others in our class (including me) and she was beautiful, of course. We both lived in the suburbs of Chicago so we both had took the train from Union Station to the suburbs. Our paths crossed quite a bit the first year at Columbia. The first thing I tried was leave a Hershey Kiss on her desk on Valentine’s Day without her knowing. I was kinda shy back then but wanted her to know she had a secret admirer. A couple days later in our keyline/pasteup class, I let her know I may not be in class the following week due to a conflict so I asked if I could get her number so she could fill me in on any missed assignments. It worked like a charm ;) Although she insisted she had a boyfriend at NIU, it didn’t stop my pursuit and eventually we started riding the train together, having lunch and meeting on the weekend. We graduated together, got married five years later and the rest is history.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.reflectionscreative.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reflections_rc/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthartman2/