We recently connected with Daniela Pelton and have shared our conversation below.

Daniela, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Thanks for having me! To tell you a little about me, I’m a web designer, brand strategist, and creative director behind The Humanista Co.— a holistic design studio for purpose-based brands and entrepreneurs.

My mission is to help conscious business owners bring their whole human selves to their brands, and to translate that visually so that you can attract form a deeper connection with your ideal clients, all while being true to who you are. I’ve noticed that as our world continues to become more and more digital, we have become more connected than ever, while at the same time becoming more personally disconnected from others and even from ourselves. I want to help conscious business owners reverse this problem by showing you how to genuinely be who you are online, make the competition irrelevant, and overall attract the right people to your brand for the long-run.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

As a designer and brand strategist, I offer web design, DIY website templates, brand strategy, and brand design. I believe that your brand and website should never feel cookie-cutter. We are all meant to follow our own unique paths, your business included. I truly believe every business owner like you deserves a brand that uniquely captures your values, mission, and story so you can form deeper connections with your audience and continue to build a powerful brand with purpose.

As a former tech career coach turned designer, I grew tired of all of the noise out there — you know, all of the “business gurus” telling you how your business should look, act, and sound. I saw too many brands that looked like so many others, and I felt frustrated with the lack of originality. More importantly, I realized they were lacking a human connection trying to follow all the rules.

When I first started out in business, I got caught in that black hole of trying to do all the right things, but I quickly grew lost and frustrated. Nothing I did felt right or like it was the real me. I later realized I got too caught up trying to follow other peoples’ paths… I would follow my favorite people in my field and try to imitate what they seemed to be successful doing. Things like trying out other peoples’ marketing strategies, social media calendars, their images, etc. Writing copy that wasn’t actually coming from my own brain and heart, simply replicating what I saw others doing.

It didn’t take long to realize that I just didn’t feel like myself, and brand felt unoriginal and even phony to me. Even worse, I kept changing the design of my own website because it never felt good enough. I felt exhausted, frustrated, and burned out, but I didn’t know what to do instead to bring in clients. I felt like such an imposter and quite honestly, I wondered if I was even cut out to be a business owner at all. Eventually, I threw my hands up and decided I needed to do things my own way, and bring my real self to my brand.

What happened next was amazing—one morning I woke up and suddenly I had this entire brand strategy framework in my mind, a process I had never seen from anyone before. I sat down at the computer at 6 in the morning and started typing like a madwoman until I had written an entire workbook to help me get clarity about myself and my brand. I decided to give it a try and I sat down with myself to identify things like my core values, my unique mission, and my ideal audience, my overall vision. I dug deep to understand what makes my brand unique and how to translate that visually in a way that attracts only dream clients to me. After going through my own workbook, the vision for my overall brand—how it looked and sounded— came to me effortlessly, as if it had been waiting for me to welcome it with open arms all this time. With renewed energy and clarity, I started sharing content on social media in a way that felt RIGHT for me—sharing my own journey, my stories of vulnerability, challenges, and lessons learned in order to inspire others along their unique journeys.

Best of all, after gaining all of this clarity about myself and my brand, I felt this freeing sense of empowerment and confidence to move bravely forward and take ownership of my business. Ever since then, I’ve been so proud and grateful to see how ideal clients are drawn to my brand and appearing from what feels like out of the blue, and excited to work with me. Now I know I’ll never need to compromise myself again in order to find ideal clients and to grow my business in a way that feels true to me, and I get to help others in the same way.

This is how The Humanista Co., was born, and why I’m so passionate about helping others embrace their unique paths to build their brands with purpose and clarity.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, it’s the process of visually translating an overall identity. Going from a “corporate dropout” where I would often be immersed in busy work with nothing to really show for it, to being able to work on projects that allow me to use all of my skills and bring complex ideas to life is honestly a magical and rewarding process for me. It’s challenging, fun, exciting, and inspiring for me all at once!

But I think the best part of being a creative is the impact that my work has on others—my clients get to walk away with an actual product that captures their brand’s identity and helps to bring them dream clients and expand their impact. So when I think about the ripple effect that my design work creates, it makes everything feel worthwhile.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’m only 34 and the amount of times I’ve pivoted makes me feel like I’ve lived several lives already! While sometimes tiring, overall, I love the adventure of a good pivot along with the changes and lessons each new chapter brings. To tell you about some of my pivots:

In my early career and fresh out of college, I took a job as an English teacher in Spain for about three years. I learned an incredible amount about myself, loved the adventure of travel, and learned to be independent and self-reliant. These are skills that have served me well through every single pivot I have made. Eventually, though, felt the pressure from my friends and family to come home to Washington D.C. and “get a real job.” So I decided to give it a try.

This is what I call going down the dangerous path of “shoulds.” I started doing everything I thought I should be doing to build a respectable career and become a “successful adult.” I tried all kinds of jobs, like bilingual recruitment, HR at a global think tank, e-learning at an Ivy League university, and career coaching for a tech startup. They all sounded exciting, and I always started out hoping each would become my dream job.

But nothing would stick. Every job I ever had eventually felt soul-crushing, and left me feeling undervalued and unfulfilled.
I wanted so desperately to find a sense of purpose in this world. But all I could think to do was trust my gut and cling to the hope that, eventually, I would find it.

After quitting yet another corporate job, I decided to try something different. As an avid learner, I deeply missed living in an academic environment, and I decided to go back to school. I ended up graduating top of my class in an international master’s program in the Middle East, where I studied social entrepreneurship and leadership in impact-driven organizations. I loved every minute of it.

I think this is when I finally felt “a spark.” Have you ever felt that lightbulb moment when you know in your heart that this is the path for you? The more I learned about entrepreneurship, the more alive I felt. Going through that program gave me the confidence and willingness to go for it myself, and start my own business. I realized the reason I kept feeling unfulfilled in previous jobs was because I am meant to work for myself!

It was so freeing to realize that I don’t have to try to fit into roles that aren’t who I am. That I can carve out my own path, design it however I choose, and trust in myself to figure it out along the way. This is how I view the art of pivoting, and I try to remember this whenever I find myself going through another big life change.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thehumanista.co
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehumanista.co
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniela-pelton
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/thehumanistaco Dribbble: https://dribbble.com/thehumanistaco Creative Market: https://creativemarket.com/thehumanista