We recently connected with Shane Miles and have shared our conversation below.

Shane, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Bright Matter started with a feeling. Specifically, the realization that good design could actually DO good and make a difference in the world. My first experience of that feeling was designing and developing websites and collateral for affordable housing organizations in Fort Collins, Colorado, as part of the talented design and strategy team at my old agency, Toolbox Creative. When I witnessed the positive effect our work was having and how we were breaking down barriers both inside these organizations and across the local community, I was hooked. That feeling never left me, and it sparked a desire to do more if I ever had the chance.

Within a couple of years, another opportunity presented itself when a friend of mine, Jason Gonzales (now a higher education writer for Chalkbeat Colorado), provided a lead for an education equity organization looking for design work. What initially started as smaller engagements grew into steady freelance income — and soon transformed into the seed of a design firm built to help education equity organizations achieve their dream of positively impacting traditionally underserved students with better school funding: giving every child the opportunity to thrive in their respective education system.

I come from a family of educators. My mom taught art for 30+ years. Her dad was a principal and then superintendent of their school district in New Jersey. I’m married to a 16-year choir teacher turned school Administrator. Many of my family and friends are educators, were educators, or are connected to education somehow.

Education has been a passion of mine since college. Before I graduated college, my dream was to learn from successful agency owners, open my own firm, and then give back by eventually becoming an educator myself. Throughout my career, I’ve relished every opportunity to teach design or design principles at the elementary, middle, high, or collegiate levels. When I discovered I had the opportunity to open Bright Matter to help further equitable education across the country, I had to take that chance. It’s precisely the mission I wanted to have as the foundation of my firm: to be constantly in pursuit of using design thinking for good.

Shane, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Design came pretty naturally to me. We had to turn in Research Workbooks each week in my high school art class. Inside each week’s work was a collection of sketches and inspiration from your life. Many of my pages were filled with type illustrations well before I understood what design was. It was just an expression of what I was interested in.

Luckily for me, my high school art teacher, Travis Krause, noticed my inclination toward design and connected me with a local business owner looking for some new business cards. From that point forward, my post-high school path was made clear: I wanted to be a graphic designer.

I graduated in 2009 with my Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts with a focus in Graphic Design and a minor in Vocal Performance from Colorado State University. Within a couple of months, I was hired for my first design job with the High Plains Library District, creating collateral for library programs and wayfinding solutions for the District’s multitude of locations. Two years later, I helped run and became co-owner of Studio Time, which focused on providing studio spaces to individuals looking for a recording space, photo studio, etc. This blossomed into an additional business called PHOCO, which initially provided graphic design, photography, and videography (they now only offer photography and videography). Eventually, Studio Time turned into a downtown event and studio venue called the Downtown Artery. Soon after, PHOCO and the Downtown Artery parted ways, and I sensed it was time to look for opportunities elsewhere.

In college, my dream agency had always been Toolbox Creative here in Fort Collins, Colorado. It turns out that as I was about ready to move on, they had an opening for a Senior Designer position. For the next eight years, I worked as the Senior Designer and then Design Director of Toolbox Creative, working in 3D Printing, Green Tech, Ag Tech, and Affordable Housing. During my tenure, I worked in print and digital working as both a designer and web developer. I also helped educate our junior designers on best practices for working in the design industry. After eight years of truly learning from the best, I decided it was time to open my own shop, Bright Matter, in 2022.

Bright Matter offers design, strategy, and web development for education equity-focused organizations. We’re based in Fort Collins, Colorado, but currently do work across the United States. On a weekly basis, we’re working on a variety of projects ranging from branding, website development, and social assets to printed reports, animation, marketing campaigns, and strategy. We’ve found we work best with organizations interested in establishing and maintaining relationships rather than only seeing Bright Matter as a service provider. We prefer being in the thick of the action and love helping our clients ideate, grow, and maintain campaigns and movements that serve as cornerstones of positive policy change in their state.

For us, making an impact isn’t just recycling old ideas or recreating what other organizations have already done, but rather helping our clients get noticed and make a difference with design, strategy, and development that sets the standard in the education sphere.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Bright Matter was built 100% debt-free. Within a month of founding the business, I converted an hourly client into an annual retainer that provided enough recurring funds to meet my personal needs while allowing me to start slowly building the business. Within 6 months, our work landed us another retainer client for the following year. I took Chris Do’s invaluable Business Bootcamp in the summer of 2022, which has empowered me as a business owner to further my business development repertoire and encouraged me to begin hiring other talented individuals who shared Bright Matter’s vision. We’ve nearly tripled our first-year revenue in 2023 and have quadrupled our team from one designer/developer/owner (me) to two designers, a project manager, and myself.

As part of Bright Matter’s strategy, I also hired a bookkeeping company, tax advisor, and business advisor, and I will honestly never look back. They have provided incredible insight and expertise, which has led to tax savings, accounting organization, and growth.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We meet with most of our clients at least once a week to review our completed projects, queued projects, and discuss what’s next. In most cases, we’re able to do this because we’ve established a retainer with our clients that allocates weekly meetings in the budget. I view these weekly meetings as critical to maintaining a positive and connected relationship with our clients. We’re able to keep our finger on the pulse of client priorities while allowing for time to discuss wins or opportunities for improvement.

We view our clients as more than just conduits to get from A to B, but rather as opportunities to foster long-lasting and meaningful relationships.

We’re shipping out our first client-facing holiday card this year as well, which excites me greatly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://brightmatterdesign.com/