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 […]
Party With Us and Celebrate 5 Years!
Upswept Creative is turning FIVE years old, and we want you to party with us! Join us for a sweet soiree to celebrate five years of creating strong, smart, beautiful business brands. Way back in 2011, Upswept began as a one-woman show with a different name, but now we have a small-but-fierce team to help […]
Why Letting Purpose Drive Your Brand Makes Your Business Stronger
Jessica and I recently enjoyed a panel discussion at Pull The Weeds, an exhibition and event centered around purpose-driven branding hosted by FIRNW. Kirk Souder, Thom Walters, and Jen Michaelis Van Arkel shared their thoughts about what drives branding when social good is at the center of the organization. The most obvious purpose-driven brands are the ones that are engaged […]
All Work and No Play Makes Dull Creative Work!
It’s all too easy to get stuck in work mode. Working long hours, rushing to the gym, then going home to eat something and fall asleep. Only to wake up early and do it all again. But as a creative agency–or any type of business, really!–it’s important for us to remember take play breaks. Design […]
Open Source Bridge Day 2: You Are Not Your User
Day Two of Open Source Bridge encouraged us to look beyond our own experience, and try to see the world through a different lens. Not only does it help us be more compassionate as people, but it also helps us create and code better design and user experiences for everyone we want to reach. Algorithms […]
Open Source Bridge Day 1: Everyone In Tech Matters
We’re spending a big part of our week at Open Source Bridge, both taking in wisdom and taking photos! On Day 1, I spent a lot of time wishing that I could be in multiple places at once, but I did make it to a couple of different talks which drove home the message that tech needs to strive to […]
WebVisions PDX: Design is about People
I got to drop in on the WebVisions Portland conference earlier this month with a longtime collaborator, Jen Barth of Big Small Brands. The conference was a multi-day affair, but even a one-day peek felt like time well spent! The two talks I attended on Friday morning weren’t especially similar, but they had one very important thing in common: they […]
Upswept Creative at the ACT-W Conference in Portland!
Last weekend, we had the awesome opportunity to attend the ACT-W (Advancing the Careers of Technical Women) conference in Portland and we had a great time! As I wrote about fairly recently, the gender gap in tech is pervasive, and ACT-W is doing its part to help support women entering into and working in tech […]
Lessons from the Lesbians Who Tech Summit!
If you are a woman in the tech industry and feel your most recent Portland tech conference was mostly populated by white, 25-35 year old men, you wouldn’t be incorrect. A recent survey by Bloomberg shows that silicone valley big hitters such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Twitter are all failing to get above the […]
Saddling Up for a Fun Social Media Campaign
We launched a five-day social media campaign last week, and we had some, ahem, unique personalities stopping by the studio to be a part of it, earlier in the month. We’re sponsoring the High Rollers in their 2015 roller derby season, and this past weekend, they threw The High Rollers Showdown Throwdown, a fundraiser party to support the […]