We recently connected with Kurston Melton & Jeremy Paten and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kurston & Jeremy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?
We hope that our legacy will be inspiring people to learn more about any and everything they possibly can, make research a hobby, get to know your community, your neighbors, be intentional, observe the world.
We hope people will remember at least one thing they learned from us, something that they’ll keep with them the rest of their lives.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Collection of Collections originally started as a second-hand pop-up where we sold our original drawings, trinkets, books, and homeware. After about a year, we switched gears and became a creative studio providing a wide range of art and design services. We offer creative solutions through print and digital collateral, art direction, illustration, and consultation.
With over 20 years experience in visual art, project management, marketing, art administration, and production we provide clients with an intentional approach to their creative needs. Whether you’re looking for a logo rebrand or curation of your space, we can help you achieve your creative goals. We enjoy making things with our hands, connecting traditional with unconventional, growing ideas, digging deeper, and exploring new possibilities.
Beyond the work we do for clients, we create our own in-house collectibles based on our interests in art, design, Black culture, community, and nature.
When we’re not in the studio, we are cultivating our garden, growing food, and designing our own botanical ecosystems. To learn more about the Black experience with plants take a journey through our beloved project – Black People with Plants.
Our newest project brings together magazine enthusiasts and the curious alike. Room for Reading is a lil’ magazine library filled with our collection of independent print publications.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
One of our biggest assets is our approachability and collaborative skills. Reaching out to a designer can be intimidating for some folks, so we like to ease their fears and have them be part of the creative process.
Something that we always pride ourselves on is our desire to have the client be a collaborator. We want to know as much about them, their mission, their values and their audience. We create with the audience in mind, what do they like, what are they looking for. We think about how our work speaks to them while creating brand awareness for our client.
Through this we ask clients provide us with feedback along the way. All feedback is good feedback. We encourage clients to tell us why a design isn’t working for them – what makes it ineffective or effective. We never take offense if the client is absolutely not feeling the work. In order to keep ourselves out of a never-ending cycle of revisions, we like deep diving with the client.
Before any work begins we offer a questionnaire as a way for us to get to know the client. More times than not clients will tell us how appreciative they are of the meaningful questions as it helped them think about their business in new ways.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Word of mouth honestly. We don’t do much social media strategy, but we are currently building a more robust and dynamic website. Most of our work comes through based on referrals – either by former clients, collaborators or friends. It’s a very organic way of marketing but with word of mouth marketing comes a lot of trust. People trust with a their friends or highly respected peers have to say.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.collectionofcollections.net
- Instagram: collectionofcollections
Image Credits
Photo of Kurston and Jeremy by Tiffany Smith