A Conversation With: Brandi Mebane, Owner & Creative Director of Mebane Design Studio
I sat next to Brandi Mebane at a mutual friend’s birthday dinner last December and had a great conversation with her as we enjoyed dinner and the celebration. We were already following each other on Instagram, so it was a pleasure to meet her in person and connect with this dynamic woman who has a beautiful spirit and who is on a mission to help and highlight those dope souls who may be overlooked but blessed abundantly with creativity.
Brandi hails from the East side of Baltimore City (Side note: Baltimore natives will always shout out what side of the city we are from), but also grew up in Baltimore County, where her family relocated when she was a young girl. Brandi moved to Philadelphia after high school to attend Temple University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. After college, she moved to New York City with dreams of working in journalism, but spent most of her early 20s working public relations and communications positions with health care and education organizations. In 2011, she found herself very interested in design and started her journey to make a career switch to focus on branding, website development and graphic design. Brandi continued to work full-time in communications roles, while freelancing and offering her design services “as an added bonus” to the companies she worked for. In 2017, Brandi took the leap into full-time entrepreneurship with her business, Branding by Brandi (now Mebane Design Studio). Her mantra, “Everyone one deserves to be seen,” goes deep, and we had a great conversation about that, entrepreneurship, how the pandemic has impacted her business and Brandi’s experience as a BCAN Founder Fellow (Baltimore Creatives Acceleration Network) this year.
Dareise: You were working in communications roles for many years and then decided to go back to school to earn your master’s in publication design, what inspired you to do that?
Brandi: At the time, I felt like I’d reached a dead-end in communications roles. I had a friend who went through the publication design program at the University of Baltimore and loved it. So, I read up a bit more on it and decided to enroll. I come from an artistic family, my mother is a retired Pre-K teacher and she is super creative. My brother is an artist, he’s a painter and so I knew I had it in me. I found the program and I said, “this would be interesting.” And so, unlike some people who know they want to be a doctor or go to law school, for me it was like, “this would be interesting,” and I decided to pursue it and it was the perfect move for me because it did help me to transition into a business I’ve created for myself.
Dareise: Tell me about your decision to step out and start your own business. What were the highlights and challenges you experienced?
Brandi: So luckily enough I’d been building my business while I was still working full-time, so it doesn't take away, or detract any from being anxious or being nervous about doing something full time. You realize now that I am responsible for all of my income. I am responsible for paying all of my bills with this business, but I was able to build up a clientele, somewhat, while I was still working. The great thing is that I was able to connect with former colleagues who referred business to me once I started working [my business] full time, so that was a benefit. A challenge was that I had no background in business, I just knew how to do the work. Understanding the legal aspects of setting up a business, that came actually a little bit later. The accounting piece, business models, marketing, all of the things that we don’t think about, the back end of a business, I had to learn that.
We think about a service we can provide, but if you can't figure out the back end it’s going to be hard for you to continue to provide that service. So, that was a challenge, I learned a little bit later on that figuring out the back-end of business is a challenge. And, of course business development is a challenge too, you have to do the work and then you have to go out and hunt for your work. If you are not hunting for your next client or if something comes up and you can't work, you don't make any money. So that has been a part of the challenge of being a solopreneur, I’m working a lot of times around-the-clock, you’re wearing several different hats and you have to learn a little bit of everything in order for your business to be successful, or until you get to the point where you make enough to pay someone to do some of those things.
Dareise: Although you’d been doing branding and graphic design work on the side while working full-time, when you launched your business in 2013, you named it Branding by Brandi. This year, you rebranded and are now known as Mebane Design Studio. Tell me about the differences between where you were then and the recent rebrand of your business.
Brandi: My business started while I was working full-time and trying to build a clientele and actually, I lost my job. I was getting married about 2-3 months after I lost my job. I was receiving my unemployment, but that was to cover my bills. So, I was like “girl, you need to make some money.” The funny thing is, I reached out to my wedding coordinator and was like “girl, do you need a website?” and she said yes. I started working on her website and she slashed some of the pricing for services that she provided. I realized I can potentially barter services. Once I started doing that, I said to myself, well maybe you should just formally make this into a business. So later that summer after the wedding, I said let me formalize this. Let me go ahead and create a business name, set up the business and register it with the State.
I truly believe that our businesses are a reflection of who we are at the time and that’s where I was at the time, Branding by Brandi. But then, I started thinking, but branding isn't just what you do, you do more than that, so it's appropriate to rebrand to really speak to the full spectrum of services that your business provides.
I went through the BCAN (Baltimore Creatives Acceleration Network) Founder Fellowship this year and it was amazing, it’s something special. I tell everybody that I know, if you’re a creative in Baltimore, you need to be involved. There are brilliant people working over there. Brilliant businesses partnering with the organization. The organization is actually a part of MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art). The founder fellowship, through BCAN, is what truly helped me to transition my business to this next phase. So, I talked a bit about before, you know, doing the work but not understanding the business behind the work and that fellowship allowed me to take a step back and to say, “girl, you need to get your legal aligned, you need to get your accounting aligned. You need to understand your business model, like what is it? Have you done one?” It really helped me transition my business to say, you don't just do branding, you provide design services. Your two different target audiences are these groups. You can provide the service to them and other services to the other. So, then I thought, this is a design studio, so let’s come up with a different name and so Mebane Design Studio was born earlier this year.
Brandi Mebane, Owner and Creative Director of Mebane Design Studio
Dareise: Tell me a little bit more about the BCAN Founder Fellowship, can you talk about how it helped you, what tools they gave you to get to that point, to rebrand. What tools and resources do they provide for the fellows who are part of it?
Brandi: The BCAN Founder Fellowship was a 3-month intensive, and I must say like the first two weeks, I would come home and cry and think to myself [she says with a chuckle] “my business is trash. I’ve got to do so much work.” And, not that they made me feel that way at all, but just going from not knowing a whole lot, to just knowing a lot of very important information in two weeks’ time [was overwhelming]. So, at that point I had to say to myself, you’re not going to absorb all of this right now. Set some goals. You will have access to this information, so come back to it.
They provided everything from mind mapping services and free legal for the length of the fellowship. We had access to an accountant for 3 to 6 months after the fellowship as well as throughout. They provided access to marketing professionals and mentors as well. This was their second cohort and they really thought through the exact things that small businesses and startups need, and found the appropriate people within Baltimore City and County to help these businesses grow. I forget the exact dollar amount, but at the beginning of the fellowship they told us all of the services are provided for free. Of course, these services are worth a certain amount, so that was just impressive that these other businesses provided those services at no cost. It would've easily cost in the tens of thousands of dollars for a small business. I always say that this was the perfect timing, the right thing that I needed to help scale my business. Even through the naming process, I had facilitators and other fellows to mind map with and think through some of what I was planning to do with my business.
Dareise: I love that and you make a good point. A lot of times, as creatives, we have these talents, we have these gifts. You can go get degrees, but the business side, if you haven't done that before or don't know anyone who's done that before, it's something that you have to learn. I’m finding, as I am taking this journey as a writer, it's like a one woman show. When I was working in the school system, I had my colleagues and we have a team and you do this and you do that. As an entrepreneur, you have to build that, so it sounds like they (BCAN) are also giving you a network of people that I’m sure you’ll stay in contact with for years to come. And, that is very important. Like I said, I learned, yes, I have the gift, but I need other people to help me with the things I don't know and just to bounce ideas off of.
Brandi: Absolutely, because as solopreneurs, a lot of times you’re so isolated because you may be working from home year one and year two. Then you may branch out and purchase or rent some office space, but you are at home or you’re in a coffee shop, so building network is extremely important.
Dareise: So, tell me about how the pandemic has affected you and your business. I know you started BCAN last fall and finished the intensive earlier this year, what have you learned during this time?
I’m a spiritual person and during the pandemic, my business has grown in terms of profit, in terms of clientele and portfolio, it has grown tremendously. And I owe that to no one other than God. It is not own my doing. I just tried to be obedient and position myself so that in the right time I am where I need to be, but all God.
So, my business is doing very well and I am hoping to expand services and hire some contractors going into next year. It doesn't hurt that my business is virtual, so I don't have to pay for brick and mortar, or have some of the overhead costs a lot of physical businesses have. But even still during the pandemic, business has increased but that means I'm working around the clock. I have been working late nights, early mornings, weekends and that has been difficult, so I've had to take a step back and reprioritize.
My family is everything to me, and having been through what we all have been through this year with losing people to COVID, and experiencing great loss, I had to think about the people that matter to me. I have to carve out the time for them first and then I do all the business around that. So if that means staying up to whatever time after I walk with my mother some mornings, if that means taking off half the day for her birthday, if that means making sure that if my husband gets off early, I’m shutting down for the afternoon then I pick up on Saturday and do some work; that has been my reprogramming and my focus during this pandemic because the people come first. Unfortunately, we’ve seen businesses shutdown because of something outside of their control. It could happen to any of us so, the focus for me has really been relationships
Dareise: What are the top three things/people entrepreneurs need to succeed?
Brandi: Your business’s why is one of the things that you need to definitely start your business. Why are you doing this? There will be late nights and early mornings. There may be some disgruntled clients, there may be some interactions with people that really may deter you or may be unsettling, so at those moments you have to remember why you are doing this. Even before you decide to contact somebody about your logo. Even before you decide to contact someone about your legal. Ask yourself why are you doing this? Type it up and make it visible so that you can refer back to that.
Also, I would say you need a lawyer and you need an accountant. You need someone to look over your contracts because, yes, as a solopreneur you will research some things, but you need somebody who can look out for you in your business who knows contracts and who knows the law because there will be a client that will go online and research something and try to use it against you. They will come with some incorrect information and, not to scare people, but I mean that's just the price of doing business, so you need to have someone that you can go to for those things.
And then an accountant, somebody to get your money together because you have to know what your cash flow looks like. You have to know how much money is going in and coming out. You have to know all those things to keep your business afloat. So, I definitely suggest having those two people on deck.
Then, your network, it's important for me to connect with other designers. Whether it's bouncing some ideas off of them or venting or just to be able to share resources, trainings and things like that, your network is so very valuable.
Dareise: So, how have you developed your network of people that you can go to and who can come to you?
Brandi: To start, it’s been former colleagues I’ve kept in contact with and they will refer business; but also, you have a built-in cheerleading squad. They will cheer you on. Also, getting involved with professional organizations, so that helps to expand your network. Social media has definitely helped to expand my network and then, funny enough, my clients. They have become friends. Even after we’ve finished projects, they will reach out to me and that speaks to what I am trying to do with my business, the relationship building.
“Everyone Deserves to Be Seen” pin from Mebane Design Studio
