Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hannah Schiller. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Hannah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

A few years ago, I was introduced to Lara MacGregor. She was the founder of a non-profit, and a woman living with metastatic breast cancer. It felt like my first “big gig.” While I had other branding projects before this one, it was the first one where I knew no one in the room I was entering. It felt like a massive accomplishment to even be given the opportunity to pitch a job where I wasn’t there because I knew the owner. Anyways, she was nearing a shift away from her non-profit and coming into her own personal brand as a writer, speaker, and change-maker.

I got the pleasure of working with her to refine and bring to life her personal brand: My Hopeful Life, and tell her story. She was acutely aware that her situation could change any moment and that she was working on a shorter life timeline than anyone in the room. The directness and fervor with which she approached her life, and therefore her death, was refreshing and terrifying and powerful.

We finished the project and I watched from the sidelines as she took the brand and ran with it in whatever way she could with the time she had left. And now, I’m working with a team to bring her book to life: a goal of hers.

Preserving her legacy, for her children, her family, her friends, the world, has been the most profound work I’ve ever done. It also made me realize that for a lot of business owners, these dreams are so much more personal than business. It’s a legacy, a gift to give the world. And it’s my honor to bring them to life and do them justice, no matter the depth.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky and actually studied Advertising and Graphic Design in college at Western Kentucky University.

When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to take a few graphic design courses and was hooked immediately. I had always been “creative” but never great at drawing or painting or pottery or any of the more stereotypical arts. I really enjoyed typography, hand-lettering, fonts, and using the align tool (my high school teacher used to joke about me being the only student who used it religiously).

I deeply loved the work I got to do in college. After, I did 2 internships: 1 at a student-led ad agency and another in-house for a local non-profit before finally getting a job as a designer at an ad agency in Louisville. On the side, I was doing calligraphy, lettering, and design for weddings and events, which was something I really enjoyed as a parallel to my day job that was bit clunkier. My sister and I started Riley and Ko, a design studio for events, and took on weddings together and separately. Both my day job and side gig started to ramp up! Before I knew it, I was promoted to Creative Director and doing 40+ weddings per year. My sister took a step back to have a baby and focus on her full-time job so it was just me working on Riley and Ko.

Eventually, I gave in and realized that I simply couldn’t keep both jobs and enjoy my free time in the way that I wanted. I could feel burnout looming. After a few months of deliberating which route was for me: stay the course and oversee a creative department in full, or quit and go off on my own, I chose myself.

About a week after I quit the agency job, I decided I hated weddings. Love to be a guest, hate to be a vendor. I quickly made the mental shift to pivot to working with small businesses. I finished out my year of weddings, started to build my clients on the branding side, and started dreaming of a rebrand for myself. The name Riley and Ko no longer felt reflective of the work I was doing for brands, so Brackish was born. A perfect representation of my philosophy on branding, brackish water is a combination of fresh water and salt water. I believe brands should be a combination of a company and its customers.

Now, I focus on working with independent businesses (startups, small businesses, entrepreneurs) to bring their vision to life through foundational branding. We take an authentic approach to branding, meaning that we integrate the business practices, authentic voice, and story into brand, ensuring that potential clients see the brand value from the first touchpoint and brand champions have the confidence to recommend.

I’m passionate about working with founders, change-makers, and people pursuing their dream careers and lives! It’s not an easy path but it’s a rewarding one.

In design specifically, I feel very strongly about dropping my own ego and interests to best serve each brand. I see a lot of designers or firms who work in a very specific style of industry. And while I would personally get bored with the same projects on repeat, I also think the best course of action is design that serves the company, not the designer. I work hard to abandon my previously-held beliefs or vision for a company until I can understand their mission, goals, personality, and customers.

I get excited about every single brand I work on and love to see them come to life and take shape of their own, long after I complete the branding.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Not to get too deep here on design, but I believe that design is just another form of communication. The bonus is that with visuals, copywriting, and attention to nuance, you can communicate not only a message but an emotion.

Working with founders is what drives me. I want them to feel appropriately seen, heard, and worthy of authentic communication. Ten times out of ten, founders are simply people following their dreams. They’ve discovered something within themselves, realized that there’s a demand for it, they’re good at it, and can make money from it. They’re almost always embarking on a leap of faith journey, starting something from scratch.

The biggest compliment to my work is when someone tells me that I “just get it.” I value getting inside their head to the core of what they’re doing for the world. My goal with branding is to reflect that back to them and out to the world so they can continue to pursue their passion proudly.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Professionalism! Lately, I’ve been more and more aware of how women are expected to show up in professional settings. Naturally, I’m pretty crass and blunt, but also frequently laughing or playing. I learned early on that I needed to show up in a very specific way: a distilled version of myself that fit the world’s view on professionalism. This doesn’t typically include sitting in the floor, frizzy hair, f bombs, or sweatpants.

The more I lean into the parts of myself that are typically considered unacceptable in professional settings, the more I align with clients who feel the same way and the more I get to be a permission slip for someone to do the same.

As women (and as humans), we’re told we should be, act, feel, dress, perform, conform, speak, and work in a certain way. The startup and small business world is full of people who say “fuck that” and do it anyways. It was a lesson I was happy to unlearn… and far more comfortable to be in leggings than a suit.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://brackishcreative.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brackishcreative/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=brackish%20creative
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahrschiller/

Image Credits
The Humble Lion