We recently connected with Lizzie Wallace and have shared our conversation below.

Lizzie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think it takes to be successful?

For me, the key to success is the pursuit of your goals.

I recently found a note from our first year of business that reads “2021 Accomplishments”. This list includes items such as “completed 8 brand projects, designed 2 websites, formed an LLC, figured out health insurance, set up a company bank account, learned how to use Quickbooks, created invoices and contracts, gained 500 Instagram followers.”

Then I looked at our list of “2022 Accomplishments”, which notes that we landed our first 10k client, completed projects for two restaurants openings, secured our first retainer client, developed relationships with freelance partners, attended in person industry events, reached our annual income goal… the list goes on!

The continuous journey to reach your goals, no matter how big or small, is what fuels motivation and is a measure of growth. You have to start small and keep building on what is possible over time. Pretty soon you’ll look back and be amazed at how far you have come.

Three years later, we continue to set goals that push us forward. Building a business is a long game, but if you keep reaching for new goals it’s the journey that makes it all worth it.

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

My love for design has been there for as long as I can remember. I’ll never forget the first time I stepped foot in one of the Firmdale hotels designed by Kit Kemp. I fell in love with the fabrics, the textures, the artwork, and the use of materials. The environment she creates through her designs is one of a kind and a pure joy to experience.

I developed an interest in interiors as a career and took a summer course at the New York School of Interior Design. After that, I was hooked and went on to attend Miami University in Ohio where I got my BFA in Interior Design with a critical focus in Graphic Design.

I was a design intern at BHDM Design in New York, which led me to begin my career in commercial interiors at WeWork on their Enterprise design team. When covid hit I was laid off from WeWork and shortly after my good friend and design classmate, Laura Bishop, reached out about starting our own company. I had nothing to lose and did not hesitate to say, “let’s go for it!” Several months later, we co-founded Lumly Design Studio with a mission to help clients build a brand that they are proud of.

The switch from interiors to graphics felt natural… with lots of learning along the way!

Our experience working on multi-disciplinary teams has led to Lumly’s success developing brand identity, packaging, illustration, websites and environmental graphics. We design with a purpose and create work that uplifts and excites.

Something we’ve heard from multiple clients is that we are “thoughtfully systematic” and refreshingly creative. Our priority is to make the design process easy and streamlined so that we can focus on creating something that our clients find pride in. When working with Lumly, you will have a professional exchange of services without any surprises… and of course, have fun in the process!

We typically seek out any CPG, Food & Bev and Hospitality clients but are open to anyone that is willing to push the boundaries and enjoy the process. First and foremost, we work with good people who love what they do.

Our dream client is a restaurant or boutique hotel that is just getting started. Ideally, they haven’t built out their interiors yet so that we can collaborate with the architecture/interiors team to be a part of the greater vision from concepting to the smallest of details (naming, signage, way-finding, menus, merch… the list goes on!). Our work with Faye was a dream project for us — hopefully one of many!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Referrals! There is nothing more valuable than doing good work and having someone tell a friend. When we started Lumly, it was mostly just family and friends that were our clients. They then referred us to their friends, and so on, and so on.

We are also part of a group called Freelance Founders which is an amazing resource to find creative partners (web developers, copy writers, photographers etc.) and to find new work. The FF community has a slack channel where creatives are constantly posting about the need for a partner or new opportunities.

Lastly, we go to several events each year and try to do regular in person coffee chats to meet people in the industry. You never know where it could lead! It’s also much needed for us that work remote and crave more in person meet ups.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

While our main business is branding, we have always had a love for surface design and textiles. The interiors background coming through! Almost every brand project we do we try to sneak in some sort of pattern work or illustration. During the holidays last year, we launched our first collection of products that we tested by selling to family and friends. These included greeting cards, tea towels and wrapping paper.

We quickly learned that manufacturing goods is an entirely different beast than a service based business. However, it has been fun to learn along the way and nice to keep the products as a way to diversify our income while still focusing on our core business.

Before we began designing the collections, we walked into local LA shops that sell paper goods and asked them what they wished they had and what their customers were looking for. We knew that eventually we may want to sell our products to stores, so figured it was a good place to start!

We then started illustrating in procreate and cleaning up the designs in Illustrator. We created many patterns and played with dozens of color palettes before picking our top selections.

From there, it was time to find good partners to manufacture/print our products. This can be very overwhelming since there are so many vendors out there but we ultimately decided that we wanted to stay local if we could. We found a screen printer in downtown LA to print the tea towels and a local sustainable print company to print our greeting cards. The wrapping paper was the one item that came from overseas and there were many lessons learned about shipping costs etc.

With the local vendors, we loved the ability to have face to face interactions and view the products in real time. We even got the chance to come in and see our tea towels while they were being screen printed, which also allowed our audience to have a behind the scenes view of the process. The con is that sometimes local is not always the most affordable option depending on what the quantities/products are.

Safe to say we have learned a lot along the way and are looking forward to taking these learnings and hopefully creating more products in 2024!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lumlydesignstudio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lumlydesignstudio/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lumly-design-studio/

Image Credits
@savannakathleenphotography @caffeineuntilcocktails @sarahshenphoto @itsclaudiaher @mphoto