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Written by AMA Colorado
Why did you start your business?
I started my business because I was too creative for Corporate America. The reason I dove into Brand Strategy was that as a designer, I would work with so many coaches, consultants, and professional service providers who really didn’t understand the meaning of having a brand.
They thought their brand was just their logo -- so they would come to me with all of these ideas that just didn’t make sense and we would go through revision after revision and a lot of times it still wasn’t correct.
All photos by McBoat Photography
Tell us about your career journey and the process of launching your own business.
It took me a while to get where I am today. It has definitely been a journey. I had worked in corporate America since I was a senior in high school with a wide variety of jobs. I would get promoted on the job, but none of them made me feel like I was making an impact on anything outside of “company business”. I was fired from a lot of the companies because I had a difference of opinion on several things and I would get bored because I wasn’t able to be creative.
I would create programs and flyers for family, friends, and my church in Powerpoint. It was then that one of my coworkers asked me if I were a graphic designer. I had no clue what that was. I just knew that I was creating things on the computer. Once I found out what a graphic designer was, I did some research. I found out what programs I should use to create designs and it was on from there.
It wasn’t until 2015 that I had the opportunity to really pursue this career, full-time.
I went to school, and it was up from there — Kreda had started a business. In starting that business, all I knew was to register the business with a name which was Mac GraphiX Media & Design at the time, and the business was going to blow up. But it didn’t happen exactly like that.
When I started Mac GraphiX, all I knew was that I had the skill to start a graphic design business. I knew my business needed a name. I knew I needed a logo so people could see that I had started a business, and know that I was serious about that business because I had a logo, some business cards, a Facebook and Twitter page.
I knew what Mac GraphiX stood for, but Media & Design??? What was that?? I had no idea…it had a professional sound and it had the word “design” in it….that’s it, and people were going to see my name (Kreda McCullough) and see my designs and business was gonna just pop off…I had no idea about brand anything. I mean I was branded but it wasn’t the brand I had created, it was a brand that people who knew me had created, it was their perception of me based on what I putting out there about my business…the way I was showing up or trying to show up.
And as I stated earlier, people would come to me asking for a logo, I would design it and we would go through several revisions because they didn’t know what they wanted. Like me, they had just started a business and needed a logo.
Long story short, I enhanced my skill set, learned who I was and how I wanted to show up, went through a brand make-over, which included strategy and design, and I figured out my niche.
I had to really dig deep to figure all of this out, really get inside of every aspect of my brand, including the psychology aspect. This process helped me ween out people who would come to me only wanting a logo because I advised that they would go through this same process.
Now that I’ve branded Mac GraphiX and created Brand with Kreda, I’m able to show up consistently and attract my perfect clients by being my authentic self…I’m able to help coaches, consultants, and expert service providers grow and scale their business by teaching them how using Brand Personality in their brand strategy and design can help them attract their ideal clients along with the other important elements of branding — because a logo without a strategy is just a graphic.
What does Black History Month mean to you?
Honestly, I feel like it's a month set aside to highlight the accomplishments of a great culture that has contributed far more than one month can even contain. For me, every month is Black History Month.
Where can we follow you?
You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Youtube.