Beyond the Yellow Brick Road

Colorful eyeglasses in style of classic Elton John costumes.

I’ve always been a worker bee. Despite running my own business for years now. My best days are spent hands-on: graphic design, brand illustration, and custom WordPress web design. I thrive in long-term, one-on-one client relationships, many of which have lasted for decades. That’s where the real magic happens.

How social media has affected branding design

Image collage illustrating liking a post on social media.

Social media has been with us many years now, but I still see brands who have not thought through their branding with regards to how it will look on their social pages. How will your brand mark look in a very small square or circular space? Is it legible? recognizable? Big brands have made these […]

Color matching across mediums

Color matching across mediums.

How important is it to get a color match from Pantone ink to CMYK to RGB? Do we even care any more? When I first started as a designer, the digital world was just getting started. I worked on a boxy little Macintosh desktop and big concerns at the time were whether the client could […]

WYSIWYG

"Del Griffith, the Real Article" with portrait of John Candy.

“My wife likes me. My customers like me. ‘Cause I’m the real article. What you see is what you get.”

Award Winning Annual Report

Cover design of the 2021 Vivent Health Annual report, titled "Putting the Pieces Together".

I worked on retainer with Vivent Health (formerly the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin) for about a year as they were rebuilding their in house marketing department after pandemic lockdown. Excellent company, wonderful people to work with, a great mission – I was truly inspired by them every day. I also got to work on […]

Hungry Williams coasters now collectibles on EBay.

Hungry Williams promotional coasters, round.

Hilarious and awesome. Someone is selling Hungry Williams beer coasters on Ebay as collectibles. Love it! Don’t know the seller but looks like an industrious Milwaukeean with very good taste. Full disclosure, the The Hungry Williams is my husband John’s band. The band was formed about 4 years ago and they’ve been gathering steam in […]

New times, new brand

Andiamo ampersand logo.

Originally published June 2020. Updated February 2025. 2020, you are a pip. I have been working from home since forever, but suddenly the rest of the world is too. We are learning a new way to live in the era of COVID-19, and smart businesses are responding in all kinds of ways. As a brand […]

Missed a deadline?

Illustration of two groundhogs in their den on Groundhog day, one saying "Shoot, who's turn is it?"

According to Merriam Webster, in the 1860s a ‘dead line’ was a line within or around a prison. Prisoners would be shot for crossing the ‘dead line’. We can all relate to the anxiety and panic associated with missing a deadline. Our world revolves around the calendar and the clock. You must do A task […]

Artists Write to Work

Book cover, "Artists Write to Work" by Kate Kramer.

This is pretty cool news. My talented friend Kate just wrote a book. It’s a book that would have been very helpful to me had I read it as a younger person, but it is still very helpful now. Kate Kramer is a lecturer in critical writing at University of Pennsylvania, and she has a […]

Milwaukee Bucks permanent art collection at the Fiserv Forum

Rochelle W. Carr standing in front of her painting at the Fiserv Forum.

I don’t usually post about my other life as a painter within this site, but I wanted to announce something I am very excited about. On Friday, August 24, 2018, the Milwaukee Bucks permanent art collection at the Fiserv Forum was unveiled. I was lucky enough to be one of the 32 artists chosen from nearly 1300 […]