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

Alright, Emily thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

Having two degrees in theatre pretty much guarantees that ever person you know will ask you what you’re going to do with your life. There is no set career path for theatre artists, thus ensuring everyone’s curiosity will push them to ask personal questions about what you’ll do with your life.

The answer is a simple one: I’m going to use my creative skills and processes I’ve developed to make life more interesting for people. And that’s exactly what my background has helped me to do.

I have created a brand illustration and website design business that is successful because of my creative background. I get to help incredible people and businesses tell better stories visually, share their work in an interesting way, and reach new audiences.

My success is in the freedom that allows me to control my schedule as well as my financial success. Last year I made more money working part-time hours for myself than I ever made working full-time for someone else.

Creativity is a career path.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

On any given day, I have a new idea for a business that seems like it would be fun. But, all I really want to do for it is design the branding and website, creating the way that brand will interact and live with it’s clients. The desire to design visuals runs deep. My theatre education helped me learn how to tell stories visually; I worked in a costume shop building and designing ensembles; later in my career I planned and designed weddings; and the pandemic gave me the time to go back to school and dig deep into my love of graphic design and web development. Now, I get to work with creative small businesses, making their work stand out from the crowd.

With a decade of experience in the creative and performing arts, I launched my design studio to help my clients bridge the gap between their digital presence and in-person impact. Artists, interior designers, wedding professionals, and other creatives design our homes, memories, and worlds. I create the business visuals that help them communicate their undeniable value, including brand identity and illustration, website design, and marketing collateral.

I’ve been lucky enough to build a business with my creativity, and now I get to help other creatives do the same.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I am not so secretly rooting for and trying to promote #RichTheatreMajors (and, inclusively, #RichLiberalArtsMajors). Now, over a decade out of my Masters program, I have been able to see all of the paths my colleagues have taken. Theatre and Liberal Arts majors develop so many soft skills that go massively undervalued. And, having worked with a lot of small creative businesses, these skills are what make so many entrepreneurs successful. So if there’s any freelance or small business tips or information or networking I can pass along to my fellow former arts majors, that’s what I want to do.

Creatives know that the act of doing only makes you more creative, so I don’t worry about my creative journey. So long as I keep showing up, I’ll keep growing.

An entrepreneur’s journey is a bit of a rockier road, but it smooths out when you develop a network of kind and creative collaborators. I’ve been lucky enough to find some incredible business friends, and I want to be able to offer the same support they did.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

There are so many amazing resources that you can find about entrepreneurship. Since I had no formal business education, I’ve created my own curricula by reading books within my industry and about business. Some favorites are:

Essentialism by Greg Mckeown is great for helping you think through your business strategy. It’s about productivity and learning to be disciplined with your time so that you focus on the right things.

Profit First by Mike Mikalowicz has helped me think about the finances of my business in a much more straight-forward way. It’s about planning for your income instead of hoping you have enough to live on after you use traditional accounting methods.

Seth Godin is a marketing thinker, so anything by him will help you think through the marketing and storytelling of your brand. Seriously, all of his books are must-reads.

How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World by Michael Beirut is excellent for graphic designers like me who didn’t get experience grinding it out in an agency. He walks through his work and case studies which can be helpful in learning a successful designer’s process.

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert is inspiring. It’s about the strange, winding route creatives take in life. It’s one I reread regularly when it feels like I’m letting my business drive my creativity instead of honoring a balance.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://emilypiepenbrink.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emily.piepenbrink/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/EmilyPiepenbrinkDesign/

Image Credits
Brand Photos by Ashton Brooke Photography