We were lucky to catch up with Stephanie Pogas recently and have shared our conversation below.

Stephanie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

During the Pandemic, I really wanted to delve into my hobbies. Aside from making sourdough like everyone else, I got really into watercolor painting and digital drawing. With all of the extra time on my hands being at home, I was able to really hone my craft and learn more about taking watercolor designs and digitally manipulating them into patterns or preparing them for print as art prints. Once I was able to make a few successful patterns and prints I thought, “hey these would look really great as greeting cards!” That thought, plus my dislike for the same old generic greeting cards at the pharmacy and grocery store, sparked the idea for starting my own stationery business.

Stephanie, 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?

I am a Philly based artist with a background in Art Education and Graphic Design. I have a background in oil painting but really fell in love with watercolor and digital drawing in recent years. Creating watercolor patterns and digitally drawn designs began as a hobby in 2020 and blossomed into a small business and passion in 2021.

I create colorful and uplifting greeting cards, art prints, and small gifts with my original designs on them. Much of my work is inspired by plants and florals, focusing on the natural beauty of the world around us. From personal experience, I feel like it’s always difficult to find truly unique and beautiful stationery. The goal behind S Pogas Art is to provide my clients with eye-catching cards that have heartfelt messages and can’t be found at chain stores.

One of the most unique things about my small business is that I am a one woman show! I am the artist, graphic designer, marketing team, accountant, photographer… I do it all! It’s been really exciting to learn so many new skills as a small business owner while continuing to grow as an artist.

I am so proud of how my small business has grown over the past 3 years. I sell at in-person markets, online from my Shopify website and Etsy, and have even expanded into doing wholesale with other small business stores!

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I really wish I knew about Shopify when creating my website. Initially, I used wix for my website and spent hours upon hours trying to customize it and build a store platform. About a year ago, I made the decision to switch over to Shopify and I’m so glad I did! It has great website templates that are super customizable and user-friendly. The built-in shop feature is very industry standard and super easy for processing payments. Shopify also has tons of app plug-ins for any features you may want to add to a website such as a reviews section. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to start or build a website for their small business!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from building my brand on social media is that people love to see the face behind the product and want to get to know YOU! In a capitalist world I think people really value getting to know and see who is behind the products they purchase. Personally, I think it’s really important to create a personal connection with clients to build a brand that folks come to know and trust.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://spogasart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spogas.art/
• Other: Etsy: spogasart.etsy.com

Image Credits

All images are taken by me.