We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Diana Merkel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Diana, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

This is a really interesting question to me. I actually started my “career” as an artist when I was very young. I always had an entrepreneurial spirit growing up, and when I was about 8 I made art pieces and crafts and tried to sell them. Since then, I’ve been either educating myself in art (BFA), doing graphic design and branding, or working on art curation and installations. The reason I think that this is an interesting question is because I have only been working in the installation art space for about 6 years, and I absolutely love it. So, in some regards, I wish I had gotten to this phase of my career sooner, but in other ways, I’m happy for all of the experiences leading up to it, because I think they have provided me with a lot of skills that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Diana, 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?

DIANA MERKEL Creative Director / PS.Design

I am a branding and Graphic Design expert with over 18 years of experience as owner and creative director of PS.Design.

My belief is that a brand can embrace art as a means of communicating culture, values, and a clients willingness to express themselves in non-traditional ways. That a full sensory immersive experience can provide access and impact to a brand that digital design can’t always fully express. That brands that embrace the finer side of art understand that their spaces, events and culture can be wildly experimental. A fun example of this is a property that I’m converting into an Eco Art Retreat in Colorado called Tilted Meadows (https://www.instagram.com/tiltedmeadows/)

My recent work also includes several murals as well as curation and installation art for projects like No Vacancy RiNo (https://www.instagram.com/novacancyrino/), an artist residency program that breathes new life into vacant and about-to-be razed warehouses, and provides artists with opportunities for collaboration and complete freedom of expression in a city that has very little affordable square footage for artists.

I serve as chair of the RiNo BID Board (https://rinoartdistrict.org/) in Denver, CO, so I have unique access to create and support opportunities for our community and small businesses including our Social Impact Grants Program, Denver Walls, the Art Park and Truss House (https://www.rinoartpark.com/) and countless other small events in the area.

For the past few years, I have worked with ETH Denver (https://www.ethdenver.com/) as part of the Creative Spaces team, curating, producing and installing branded art, stages, signage and activations as well as helping artists navigate the logistics of the event. I love big events and big art, and all of the complexities of planning them, as well as feeling the energy of the crews building them and the crowds that attend them.

I have also received grants for work through local Burning Man events like Apogaea (https://ps.design/lyre72/) and Denver Decompression. To me, embracing a variety of work is the spice of life, and experimenting and evolving as an artist is key to creative longevity.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I am so lucky to be a part of a thriving art district, but not everyone has the opportunities that I do. To me, as I’ve worked with everyone from artists to developers, communication and understanding is the key to collaboration and change. Any time we can get a diverse group of people together with different goals, backgrounds, financial status, and they can begin to understand each other’s perspectives, we can find commonality and create win-win situations.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I had minored in Business in college. Learning some of those lessons “the hard way” took so much time, and so many resources. I think it would empower artists to have more business education in general (things like contracts, insurance, estimating, and basic accounting are so important).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ps.design/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/psdotdesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/psdotdesign
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-merkel-83b4325/