We caught up with the brilliant and insightful creative duo, Estefi Ramirez and Meijun Cai a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Estefi and Meijun thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?
We went through a fun and collaborative creative process to come up with the name of our company & creative studio, TakeThree.
Here’s how we came up with the name:
1. asked our closest friends and family members to describe us in their own words
2. created a word association chart/list/cloud
3. brainstormed any and all possible name ideas
4. did a preliminary name check of our favorite options to make sure they’re legally available
5. narrowed down to 2-3 of our favorite available name options
6. asked trusted people within our creative circle for their honest feedback on the options
7. took a couple of days to subconsciously process, marinate and digest our thoughts
8. chose our final name, TakeThree Studio.
For us, TakeThree is more than just a creative studio. It’s our third take at a more meaningful creative life –where work-life balance is the norm, where time is a form of financial income, where our artistic passions, travel adventures and creative services can all exist. Plus, there are 3 of us behind TakeThree: 2 humans 🧑🏻💻👩🏽💻 + 1 dog 🐶
Estefi and Meijun, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
**About Our Personal Story + How We Got Into Our Industry**
Hi, we’re Estefi and Meijun and we’re a creative couple, business partners, dog parents and 2015 graduates from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
From day 1 dorm neighbors to dating 5 days before graduation, we both have degrees in Communication Design; Estefi with a focus on Graphic Design and Meijun with a focus on Art Direction and Advertising. Post-Graduation, we each worked at separate ad agencies in NYC, the heart and mecca of advertising and as Non-US individuals (Estefi is Ecuadorian, Meijun is Chinese-Jamaican), we were legally able to work under the H1-B work visa (which we both miraculously obtained). Estefi was a seasoned Graphic Designer on both the social and web team for Mercedes Benz and Smart Car. Meijun was the art director for brands like Subway, Farmers Insurance, Lance Snacks, Cape Cod Potato Chips, GapKids and Snyder’s of Hanover.
After climbing the corporate ladder for 4 years and going through our individual ups and downs, we got to a point where we felt like we had more to offer; we wanted more as creative human beings…Long story long, in February 2019, we made the tough life decision to quit our jobs, opt out of renewing our visas, combine our portfolios, start our #freelancelife with our South Korean rescue dog, Guillermo. With 4 years of art school and 4 years of agency experience, we sold everything and left our New York homebase to moved to Quito, Ecuador where we began our new chapter with TakeThree, our creative studio and our third take at a more meaningful creative life.
**About Our Studio, Our Services + What Problems We Solve**
TakeThree Studio is a nimble, independent creative studio based in Quito, Ecuador. Specializing in brand development, digital + web design, and visual storytelling, we’ve worked with local Ecuadorian brands as well as clients from all parts of the world, from Belgium and The Netherlands to Indonesia and the US.
We focus a lot of our efforts on collaborating with clients who share similar values, brands with a mission, with grit, with a soul, and people who give a sh** about other humans and the world we live in.
We’ve helped clients with:
– coming up with memorable brand names for their business, like Overseasy, a Netherlands-based company that helps people move overseas with ease or Fulflld, a premium tech-focused delivery service company based in New York.
Link to Overseasy project: (https://takethreestudio.com/art-direction-design-projects/overseasy)
Link to Fulflld project: (https://takethreestudio.com/art-direction-design-projects/fulflld)
– creative directing and developing brand identities so that they can proudly portray themselves digitally + physically and better connect with their consumers –clients ranging from design agencies and fabrication houses like BeaverXP to startups like Café La Llama, a local family owned coffee brand that was selected to represent Ecuador in the 2022 Bienal Iberoamericana de Diseño (BID22) in Madrid
Link to BeaverXP project: (https://takethreestudio.com/art-direction-design-projects/beaverxp-branding)
Link to Café La Llama project: (https://takethreestudio.com/art-direction-design-projects/cafelallama)
– building and designing their websites so that they have a digital homebase to tell their story and seamlessly sell their services/products. For example:
MoonLab Productions (https://takethreestudio.com/digital-experiences-projects/moonlabproductions-redesign-2022)
Moens (https://www.bartmoens.be/)
TracingThought Productions (https://takethreestudio.com/digital-experiences-projects/tracingthought-website-redesign)
We also host an online community called TakeThree Uni, the creative education arm of our business where we provide valuable content, tools, advice and 2:1 creative mentorship. It’s a digital safe space hosted by creativepreneurs for other creativepreneurs, solopreneurs, duopreneurs, small biz owners, and freelancers, no matter where you are in the world.
Link to TakeThree Uni: (https://www.takethreeuni.com/community)
**What Makes Us Stand Out**
What makes us stand out is our approach to truly getting to know the people behind the brands we work with and bringing their voice, personality, authenticity and humanity into our creative process and the work we produce for them.
We pride ourselves in being a transparent, patient, professional and collaborative creative team. Grounding our work in cultural relevance, accessibility, and inclusivity, we’re always empowering our clients to share their narrative, challenge social norms and dream a little bigger.
We incorporate a collaborative creative process where our clients feel included and involved vs. it feeling like a one-way street type of partnership.
And not to mention, when can you brag about working with an Ecuador-based creative team made up of a Chinese-Jamaican art director, an Ecuadorian graphic designer, and a South-Korean dog-boss?
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
2011 – 2015
We met at Pratt Institute’s upstate campus called Pratt Munson, in Utica, NY on August 22, 2011, the first day of international student orientation. We were dorm neighbors that became best friends throughout college until 5 days before graduation (May 5, 2015), when we decided to transition from friend-zone to being an actual couple. Estefi graduated with a BFA in Communications Design with a focus on Graphic Design and Meijun, the same but with a focus on Art Direction and Advertising.
2015 – 2019
After graduation, we lived together in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, overpaying rent like every other New Yorker. Estefi worked at Razorfish, an ad agency that’s part of Publicis Group while Meijun worked at Tenthwave Digital, which ultimately got acquired by Accenture Song.
2019 – Current
Like we mentioned, in 2019, we quit our agency jobs + work visas, left New York and founded our creative studio in Quito, Ecuador.
What are the odds that an Ecuadorian would meet a Chinese-Jamaican in Utica, NY, to then becoming a couple, business partners, creative mentors living in Quito, Ecuador?
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Estefi’s Answer:
The ability to problem solve and communicate through the things we create and by making cool sh** that involves using a combination of our emotions, our soul, our hands, our mind, and our skillsets.
Meijun’s Answer:
I get to explore and apply different forms of creative expressions, from drawing and sketching to digital design on illustrator, creating photo compositions on photoshop and even creating videos and animations… and being able to make a living out of it.
And of course, in our case specifically, being able to work from anywhere in the world is a huge plus.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://takethreestudio.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/takethreestudio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/takethreestudio/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@takethreestudio
- Other: TakeThree Talks, our podcast to learn more about us, where you can join us on verbal escapades filled with curiously curated questions and vulnerable off-tangent conversations. https://open.spotify.com/show/3HnIjGdXoW1wQxRF1RGfKD