Bree Blum
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AboutBy now, I figure you have guessed that I'm a bit of a design nut. I love taking an idea and seeing what I can come up with with the click of mouse. It's a natural high, making what seems to be impossible, possible. But it wasn't always a high I received when it came to designs.
Growing up, I was always often told by friends and teachers that I was a good artist for my age, and so creative, but I was too shy and too stubborn to allow my parents to enroll me in art classes. Pride got the best of me, because I also thought I was a pretty good artist, even though I often got frustrated that the images in my head never quite looked the same as what came out on paper. You see, paper and I don't get along. My ideas don't translate clearly through that medium. Plus paper cuts HURT! Fast forward about 17 years and many paper cuts later, when I decided to pursue a different passion of mine; using sign language to promote early learning in children of all ages and abilities, by founding Hands on Communication in October of 2010, in conjunction with the Signing Time Academy (STA). As a certified STA instructor, I had the opportunity to connect with hundreds of instructors around the world to share ideas, triumphs and failures about our own sign language businesses. It was through the unfortunate frustration of another instructor who was having difficulty describing what she was looking for in a logo to a graphic designer, who had no background in sign language, that the perverbial light bulb went off. With the basic software available on my computer, I developed a design that I intended for her to share with the graphic designer to give them a frame of reference in developing her logo. She surprised me when she offered to pay me for the design, and soon my inbox was filling up with requests of other instructors. I accepted the challenge head-on and graciously accepted the requests for other types of design, which has grown my accidental business to what it is today. I guess I'm not really good at saying "No", and in this case, I'm so glad that I didn't give up. It has been a heaven-sent blessing being able to share my excitement for design with dozens of people during my first year and I cannot wait to see what else God has in store for Design4Sign! God Bless! Bree Blum |