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Aug 17 2017

Put the “Pro” in Creative Professional

At the beginning of August we introduced Janet Price, a Portland makeup artist we love. Janet had so much great advice for achieving professional success that we thought it deserved more than one blog post! Process and technique can sometimes be hard to communicate to the average person, when you work in a creative field. […]

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Jul 20 2017

Analytics in Social Media Marketing

We’ve talked about how setting goals and tracking them is super important in planning  an effective social media marketing strategy. But how do you go about that? With analytics, of course! Analytics is simply gathering data and thinking critically about what that data means in context. By using analytics wisely, you can determine whether or […]

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Jul 07 2017

Elements of Good Logo Design

Logo design has come under a ton of scrutiny, thanks to increasing numbers of people using social media. Now, basically any well-known company who dares to update their brand assets open themselves to critique from the internet at large. (even I had some choice words about a big-name logo redesign, several years ago!) Patreon’s recent […]

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Tori in her home workshop cutting material for a scarf.
Jun 22 2017

Local Business Spotlight: Tori Tissell

Tori Tissell, founding owner of Storiarts, maker of literary soft goods, has the kind of internet success story that entrepreneurial dreams are made of. It started with a personal project. For holiday gifts in 2011, Tori created her first run of book scarves — an excerpt from Pride and Prejudice silkscreened onto a square of […]

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May 25 2017

Meet Sarah Giffrow, our fearless Creative Director and Benevolent Overlord!

Sarah steers the ship at Upswept Creative, deftly serving up smart branding solutions and building beautiful, usable websites that make sense and look awesome. Sarah created her first webpage more than two decades ago, when she taught herself HTML to stave off boredom over a summer in high school. In college, she ditched her journalism […]

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May 11 2017

DWP: Good Design Solves Problems

On April 28th, Upswept Creative hosted a panel discussion at HQ as part of Design Week Portland. What started as a fun idea tossed to the group in one of our team meetings very quickly evolved into a fully realized, (and totally booked!) event. Creative Director and Benevolent Overlord Sarah had been thinking a lot […]

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Apr 27 2017

Cherry City: A Case Study in Design Work

Working in web design can be a complicated process. A lot of creative decisions need to be made while working under a deadline, and within a budget.  Both functionality and the client’s needs have to take  priority, all while looking prettier than the previous iteration. So how do the pros do it? We’d like to […]

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Apr 13 2017

Portland Business Spotlight: Katie Proctor, Owner, Books with Pictures

Portland’s Katie Proctor is on bold mission to bring comics to everyone. Her nearly year-old shop in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood, Books with Pictures, has quickly become a community hub with an explicitly inclusive mission: to be a space that is welcoming to people who love good stories without regard to age, race, sexual orientation, gender […]

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