We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Yael Ofir. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Yael below.

Yael, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? We’d love to hear the backstory the illustrates how you grew your brand.

I believe that the expansion story of my business from its inception until today focuses on two main points: networking and self-belief – betting on myself. I opened Ha.Yael Studio immediately after my B.ed.design studies at Wizo (simply because I didn’t see myself becoming an employee, it didn’t seem logical to me).
While I was still working part time at a local café, I met a designer colleague who told me that he and several other independent designers were forming an art collective of artists, With the aspiration to open a space in the city that would be a home for creators, dreaming of bringing design and creativity to our city- Haifa.
I joined the collective and we called ourselves SIRA (boat).

Soon I began meeting key people in the Israeli design world. Together as a group, we could create stronger connections and echo in the design world. For three years, we worked together as a team, creating exhibitions, cultural events, and festivals, courses for designers, which helped my name and my studio’s to become more and more recognized.
Eventually SIRA collective opened the space for independent designers.
For a year and a half I would work there every day, alongside designers and creators, in the heart of the market of Haifa.
From there, clients came to me, either because I met them at the café or because one of my colleagues referred work to me. I gained an understanding of the freelance world; we could consult with each other, clarify pricing, contracts, working methods and more. Through the knowledge of a group, I became acquainted with the world of freelancing, the world of design, and I learned many lessons.

In addition, one of the decisions I made after completing my studies was that I will continue to learn every year. I took various art and creativity workshops, participated in exhibitions, got to know more people from the learning group, and from my content worlds. I improved myself as a creator and as a thinker and continued to cast doubt on my knowledge and wanted to expand my creativity. I strengthened my technique and began to adopt a visual style that became associated with me.

After three years, with the understanding that the work at SIRA exhausted itself and took a lot of time away from my studio work, I decided to leave the collective and go through a business consulting process, where I talked about my difficulties in pricing myself, about my self-belief barriers, which helped me rebuild the value of my product and refine my business.

Throughout the journey, I never gave up on my studio, on my creation, from my mistakes I learned based on my self-belief, even at times when I didn’t make money, I knew it was temporary and that projects would come, I always knew to continue to be active, when there were no customers, I found work for myself, I drew, I wrote, I posted on Instagram, I created networks that eventually returned to me. I always believe that action brings action. My mere presence in the public space, sitting in a café, talking to a stranger about design, about business, eventually led me to work, my name began to spread from word of mouth, customers returned for more work and happily recommended me. all these expanded my activity, taught me and helped me grow.

Yael, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Let’s start from today – I’m Yael Ofir, owner of Ha.Yael Studio.
specializing in building brand and visual languages ​​for projects and businesses.
graduate of Visual Communication degree from WIZO HAIFA Academic College.
one of the founders of the SIRA collective, an entrepreneur and producer in the field of design and culture in Haifa.

I came to the world to bridge gaps. I do it through communication. I have the ability to dissect and understand the essence and the superficial,carving, and mediating messages in a clean and clear way.

Communication can be expressed in speech: in words and text but also through shapes, colors, and even gradients. Used correctly, all of these have the amazing ability to bring people together, bridge gaps between the observer and the message or between customers and the brand – almost instantly.

I am an active artist and creator in various media, mainly in the world of analog printing, continuing to learn every year: prose, poetry, painting, sculpting, experimenting, and stretching the boundaries of my thought and creativity.

I have been drawn to creation from a young age. My mom always tells me how I would invent artworks in kindergarten, cutting and sticking two-dimensional marionette dolls, and all the kids would look and try to do the same thing.
All my life I have sought ways to express myself: in music, singing, writing, literature, painting, etc. So studying visual communication was quite natural for me.

I started my business When I finished my studies, I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Gradually I began to be exposed to the world of branding, and I realized that it is what interests me the most- to create a wide graphic package for a business.
I still didn’t understand what branding was all about, but something about a personal visual language fascinated me.

At that time, a friend showed me Simon Sinek’s talk “Start with Why.”
This talk changed my life.
I understand deeply that branding is not just a logo and a business card, branding is identity: all the existing attitudes, feelings, and perceptions of the audience regarding a specific project, organization, or idea.
And what makes us think, perceive, and feel something towards a business? Our identification with it.
For identification, you need identity – branding = creating identity.

The acceptance between people and businesses our identity as people is built from a set of values and principles that we have developed for ourselves, behavior, decision-making ways. We have a certain tone, a specific speaking style, and a unique appearance that expresses our choices and beliefs. The same goes for businesses.

I help businesses understand their identity by building a branding strategy, creating a brand book and a personalized visual language that speaks the unique character outwardly.
Or in short – building a good brand.

Why specifically the “Why”?
The part of our brain responsible for decision-making is also the part responsible for all behaviors, emotions, feelings. When we communicate directly with this part of the brain, it leads them to feelings – emotions – choices – behavior.

Thinking about the inner point that drives each of us – also drives me, I believe in branding as a way of life. Directness, authenticity, living your truth.

I work with businesses, initiatives, and organizations that I believe in. It is important for me to give voice and face to initiatives that I connect to their values. dealing with connecting people, bringing hearts closer, reconciling differences. Community and local events, experiences, and hobbies, worlds of ecology, culture, literature, meeting.

In the city I live in (Haifa) there are many populations: Arabs, Russians, Jews, etc. I try to design in all relevant languages ​​to create a connection and appeal to everyone. The medium is the message.

My design style is usually illustrated and colorful, usually extends to abstract graphic shapes, and always loves to challenge myself and go towards simplification.
My design and illustration are almost always digital, but one that tries to mimic manual techniques:A style that comes from the worlds of collage, printing (linoleum cuts, wood cuts) screen printing,etc. I really love textures and material feeling.
I draw inspiration from old design, Bauhaus, Soviet design from the 50s etc.

I’m diligent, working with thought, meticulous, and approachable.
My clients will testify that the process with me will be deep and unique. in which the client is involved along the way, going hand by hand in dialogue. I am professional and do not compromise on addressing all needs, attentive, patient, and loyal to the process.
And in the end, a new brand is born! one that knows its value in the world and shows it outwardly. With individual, fresh, and personal appearance.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I have childhood dreams like everyone: to receive recognition for my creation, to win awards, to be “counted” in my professional field. For the past two years, I’ve been submitting to the “Young Designer” award in Israel, and I haven’t won. In the first year, I was disappointed and felt a blow to my stomach. In the second year, I was saddened, but immediately lifted my head high because I remembered that failure doesn’t define me. I’m still on my way, on my journey, at my own pace, and my journey is amazing at every moment, my journey to be the best designer I can be and the best person I can be. This journey is infinite, but the more time passes, the more I understand deeply that what makes people stand out above all is their authenticity.
I continue my creative journey, not by choice, I pursue it with all my strength because I have no choice, it’s what I have to do – create. I’m trying to develop my creativity, my uniqueness, to deepen it, to discover more about myself through creation, to create in a more intuitive and personal way.
I know and believe wholeheartedly that what will lead me to be the best person I can be, the best designer I can, the thing that will lead me to success and recognition – is to listen to the inner point that drives me and express it outward.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The shifts and changes in the world can create strong waves in a young unstable business, and the past few years have not been easy: Corona virus, a legal upheaval in Israel, war in Israel.

Somehow, within all of this and amidst all of this, my business continued to exist.
Last October, the lives of many of us here in Israel changed, one morning a war began. Beyond the shock, the pain, and the great sorrow over what happened, all sense of security and confidence was suddenly swept from under our feet. Who knows what will happen, when it will end, how it will end, and how we will emerge from it on the other side. It feels funny to think about my business in such a period, but I felt deep anxiety in those days – that my business wouldn’t survive. All the projects I had froze all at once, and I didn’t know how I would pay rent next month.
With all the fear, I continued my creative journey: at first, I simply expressed myself creatively on social networks, sought ways to express my feelings, and discovered a new technique in collages and text that I connected with very much.
Many people identified with my works and shared them or wrote to me it strengthened them. It gave me wind in the sails.
From this place, I understood that I must continue to do what I do, even if it’s not exactly branding at the moment, my power is in creation.
I tried to understand how I could offer my creation to the world on such uncertain days.
The next idea that came to me was a workshop for self-expression in text and collage, I offered the workshop to several community centers and found a place and funding.
After I published my workshop, the community center asked me to design promotions for additional creative workshops held there, and without noticing, I went back to work and design. Action brings action, doing brings doing.
Even when it seems difficult, the creative journey must continue. Perhaps we need to look at the path differently, but the essence is the same essence

Contact Info:

• Website: hayaeldesign.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ha.yael/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ha.yael.design

Image Credits
Abigail Zamsky, Danielle Rosenblat