We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Danielle Spadinger. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Danielle below.
Danielle, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
Timberline came to me as one of those shower thoughts. During Covid and my maternity leave I was struggling with some postpartum depression and anxiety and needed an outlet for myself. I wasn’t ready to start working with clients yet but needed something. I have a few friends that are great illustrators and seeing their work always has inspired me. Which is how an idea sparked to start a passion project of illustrating the 14er peaks in Colorado. I was just keeping them to myself occasionally sharing with a family member or friend when they said I should start sharing it with others. So I started sharing them on instagram and people loved them. Towards the Summer of 2021, I was itching to get back into freelancing and get into illustration a bit more. As a business, I was just using my full name for my business which works but I had been wanting to move away from using my full name for my business. I started to use my initials but it still didn’t feel right as I was starting to sell prints with the 14ers on it and some other designed goods. When it hit me one night, Timberline Design… where I go above and beyond for my clients to help them elevate their business. That when you go above the timberline there’s so much more that can spark something inside you. Timberline stuck with me for days and weeks until I did a brand strategy on myself and designed my branding. That’s when I knew it was meant to be, the strategy felt right, the branding felt right. It felt like the perfect fit for me.
In a way, this was a fresh start for my business after COVID and my maternity leave. I had already felt like I was starting from scratch after losing all my clients due to COVID. A new name and rebrand was a kick in the right direction for me and how I wanted to move forward with my business.
In fall of 2021, Timberline Design Co was officially born and I stepped away from using my full name as my studio’s name in social media and other advertising. Timberline Design Co is where I go above and beyond to help you elevate your business.
Danielle, 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?
Hi, I’m Danielle, Owner and Graphic Designer of Timberline Design Co.
Believe it or not, Graphic design was not what I originally set out to do. I was going to school for athletic training and wanted to work in the sports medicine field. Little did I know the school I was going to wasn’t for me. I ended up transferring to Metropolitan State University of Denver where I was honest with my advisor and said “I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I’m not sure Athletic Training is really for me.” They had me sign up for a variety of classes after we chatted; intro to criminal justice, art classes, and some other standard ones. Guess what I dove right into; art classes, that was my jam. My advisor directed me towards the Communication Design Department to meet with the professors and advisors there. I took a huge leap of faith and I ended up going through the design program which in the long run was the absolute best choice for me. For once in my life, I excelled in school because I enjoyed it. I had professors that cared about their students and the work they were doing. The classes were the perfect size, you knew everyone in your graduating class since it was such a small program at a commuter school. It was where I was meant to be.
My university did a great job of requiring us to have an internship before we could graduate. I ended up doing two internships before graduating and trying to dive head first into learning ALL the things. I graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2013 and started working in a small branding agency in Denver. I learned a lot my first year there but unfortunately was laid off right before 4th of july in 2014 with a handful of other employees. Here’s where freelancing kind of started to happen for me. I worked with some people here and there but I wasn’t serious enough about it. And needed to find something that could actually help me pay rent and bills. A little over 6 months later, I landed a job as an In-house graphic designer for a local corporation and a family that had been around for a long time in Golden, Colorado. I worked for CoorsTek for 2 years before realizing that corporate life wasn’t for me and my job there was done. We had done a massive rebranding of the company, redid all the marketing, trade show booth designs, photography and there wasn’t much to be done anymore. My last few months there I had no work to do and sensed a change was coming which is when I started thinking it may be a good time to officially go off and freelance. Again, I made the right call for myself leaving and freelancing. A few of my co-workers had been laid off just weeks/months after I had quit.
Once I started freelancing, it wasn’t all glitter and rainbows. There were a lot of bumps in the road. I had a lot of road blocks from the job that I had kept on the side since college days; coaching gymnastics. Don’t get me wrong I love coaching gymnastics, I had the best time but it consumed more of my time that I wanted to dedicated to freelancing. A lot of clients wanted to meet after their full time jobs to discuss business but I had to coach gymnastics when clients/potential clients got off work. It made it hard to move forward with my dream of full-time freelancing.
A blessing in disguise came when COVID and my pregnancy hit at the same time. I didn’t have the opportunity to coach anymore but at the same time, I lost all my design clients. Unfortunately money was tight for all clients and they didn’t know if they would be in business in a few months. I had a lot of time to manifest what I could do with myself and my business in the future. I spent the last year finding the balance as a mom and businesswoman.
Within the last year, I’ve focused on branding design with strategy and starting to offer web design for Squarespace sites. I’ve been getting more and more into strategy the last few months so it’s been an evolving process as I continue to learn and find out what works best for my clients. My goal is to help small businesses and entrepreneurs elevate their business and to feel confident while standing out from the crowd.
I’ve refined my design process down to hopping on a call with the potential client to make sure we are the right fit for each other. Once all the nitty gritty details are discussed and deposit is paid, we will do a brand strategy workshop which I like to describe it as design therapy of the brand. From the workshop, I can take all the information compiled and start designing the visual aspect of their brand. Once that is done we can start applying the branding to other marketing materials that we have discussed like business cards, social media templates, or website design. Then we can launch your brand into the world!
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding part of being a creative is being able to be creative everyday and inspire others. I enjoy working with like minded clients and guiding them through the branding process. Plus, I enjoy hearing how happy and in love they are with their branding when we have finished a project, it makes my heart and soul so happy to know that I am able to bring their ideas to life. I recently rebranded a client whose company has grown so much since we first started working together. Since her rebrand, her business has received more new inquires for new patients than previously. That moment made me realize, I’m doing what I need to be doing with the right clients.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
The old school method of word of mouth! I have tried google ads, social media, and even do UpWork for some jobs. But the best jobs have come from word of mouth. It’s still one of my favorite ways since it’s usually a friend’s friend that needs some help starting out with their new business. I typically have a better connection with those clients and we usually work together more often after the initial project.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.timberlinedesign.co
- Instagram: instagram.com/timberlinedesign.co
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/timberlinedesignco