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Julia Briggs - Pres + Creative
Julia earned a B.A. from the Columbus College of Art and Design in illustration, graduating in 1991 with honors. Stepping out in the middle of a recession, she opted to put illustration in her back pocket and jump into a wide array of design careers: advertising, publishing, and social expressions.
In 1999, Julia took the biggest jump of all and created a job for herself in her very own studio, Blue Star Design. Having experience with everything from illustration to packaging to branding to print to web, meant Julia would never be bored and her clients would benefit from the variety of her talents.
Three years ago (2007), she took one more small step for mankind and added a talented crew to the mix to offer clients a more integrated approach to design, marketing, and idea generation. Julia believes every idea, big and small, deserves the respect of great design.
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John Briggs - Veep + Mkt
John graduated from The Ohio State University in 1991 with a B.A. in English after earning a degree in Computer Engineering, nearly becoming an architect and taking enough French courses to all but make him a dual citizen.
He made the smart move of venturing into the technology industry at the beginning of the 90’s bubble, working for companies such as Sarcom, Agilysys and Arrow Electronics. His marketing expertise grew right along with that big, fat bubble as he managed multi-million dollar accounts and became a trusted advisor to outside sales teams and stakeholders driving collaboration, accountability and results.
The bubble burst but Blue Star beckoned. In 2007, he left the technology arena to share his marketing wisdom with everyone, fell head over heals for a Macintosh and embraced social media like no other English major.
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Sue Harris - 6 Degrees of Creative Seperation Expert
Sue received a B.A. from Marietta College and went on to graduate from Marshall University with a Master’s degree. Early on, she worked as an in-house designer for a small printing company and did design work for two national magazines based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Realizing she would never be able to fake a good southern accent, Sue moved back to Ohio in 1985. She worked for a regional arts magazine for several years before joining Case Western Reserve University’s in-house publications office where she remained for over 17 years, designing anything and everything imaginable. After a year at Agilysys, Inc. and a few months of freelancing, Sue joined Blue Star Design as a full time designer in January 2008.
Sue believes in true love, world peace, and giving 100% to the task at hand. And yes, you probably know her somehow, someway.
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Kellie Micka - Creative Partner
Kellie graduated from Michigan State University in 2000 with an English degree and high hopes of writing novels all day, lakeside. Realizing this only happened in the movies, she went on to discover the world of Graphic Design and headed back to college. After earning a B.A. in Fine Arts from Kendall College of Art and Design, she took her degrees and entered the world of social expressions.
In 2005, she packed up and moved to Cleveland and three years later decided to try her hand at the other side of graphic design. Working with Blue Star Design, she’s been happily designing a variety of projects, lakeside.
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Jason Abdullah - Technology Partner
Since 2004, Jason has been providing custom technology development consulting and programming services.
He is owner of # custom technology, conducting technology and information architecture consulting, design, and web application programming.
Jason’s has been a principal consultant for new media, print and broadcast projects for clients including: Hasbro, Gillette, Discovery Channel, Zaplistings, Braun/Gillette, Lego Toys and Columbia Records.
In addition, he has received recognition for work from Mutual Fund Education Alliance, New England Direct Marketing Association, Communication Arts and Print Digital Design Annual.
And despite this really straight forward bio, he can tell a really good story and make us laugh until our stomachs ache.
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2. Step away from ur phone - it applies to husbands too. RT @ThinDifference: Step Away from Ur Devices During Meetings http://t.co/PinnYafl
3. @DickPittman7 You are welcome. Thanks for the recommendation for ROBERTS. We had a blast - stayed out 'till 1:30.
2. Are Big Corporations Putting the Brakes on Social Media? Interesting: http://t.co/6ot49cw4 via @entmagazine @djsroka
3. @piratebluestar Can u take a break from the FB rave party for 1 min & swing by LinkedIn so we can get some biz done http://t.co/I5gbxWm9
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Blue Star Design in the news.
By John Briggs as told to Plain Dealer Reporter Marcia Pledger
The Mistake: I was a marketing manager in corporate America for a long time, working for multi-billion dollar companies with resources at my fingertips. When my wife's small design studio got to the point where she gained a client that could help take the business to the next level, she begged me to join her. With reservations I finally did. But I started off wrong, bringing my corporate mindset to a small business. Read the entire article and the fix at cleveland.com.Permalink | Leave a comment »
SubscribeAnd just how are you running this race?
Surprisingly, it turned out our son is pretty good at long distance running. And our lightening-quick daughter was the one to struggle at times during these meets. She looked almost directionless. Thank goodness for the all signs, spectators, spotters and orange cones or we could have lost her to the woods.
It was just perplexing. This is the same girl we frantically chased through the doctors office along side the nurse, needle in hand. She’s way speedier than she had been letting on at cross country.
It appeared, after a few long drawn out races, that our lovely Lydia lacked a goal – she was simply running to run.
That’s nuts. No one runs a race to run a race, no more than one runs a business to run a business. You don’t run for the heck of it. There is a reason you run. And it’s not just to finish, either. Finishing is not a goal, it is an integral part of the race.
The idea is to finish each race AND improve. Carefully defined goals help you measure your progress along the way, and give you the focus vital to reaching your destination. Achieving a better standing, better time, better running form. Earning better profits, reaching more customers, reducing expenses.
Without goals you end up going through the motions, trailing behind everyone else in the field. If you’re persistent, and a bit lucky, you will finish – but without any kind of reward or true satisfaction. More than likely you’ll only be left with exhaustion.
Our son's goal was clear from the start of cross country, to be the first one in on among his teammates. Lydia, on the other hand, loved the social aspect of the meets. She looked forward to hanging out with her girls before and after the race. So we helped her discover the goal she needed. We simply pointed out she could “hang out” with her faster friends DURING the race, too – something she didn’t realize she could do.
Finally, on the last weekend of the season, Lydia ran her best race ever. She shaved 5 minutes off her time, and actually beat a few of her friends along the way – both to her amazement and ours.
Funny, the one thing I didn’t have to point out to either of our kids is that all goals end up being worthless if you aren’t willing to dig in and get a little dirty to get the job done.
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Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland Chooses Flier Styler
“Flier Styler™ ensures we stay on brand without having to micromanage layout and content creation,” said Samantha Stroud, Marketing and Communications Manager at Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland. “Since content is entered directly into the tool by our volunteers and employees, Flier Styler™ reduces the amount of time required to create, edit and approve content for publication. With Flier Styler™, users are guided through the creation process, so content is more likely to be on target and the final product will be consistent with our brand and will look great.”
Check out their fliers on the web >
Read about how companies are using Flier Styler.
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