Hello, my name is Hallie. I am the Strategy Director/Owner of Pixel Point Creative. Pixel Point Creative is a full service web and graphic design firm located in Erie, PA that specializes in a content management system called Joomla. We create custom websites and graphic design elements for a variety of clients in many different fields. We also create Joomla templates and extensions for the masses.
I am a wife, a sister; an aunt (to four lovely little girls), a music lover, a photography enthusiast, a traveler, and an avid golfer….oh, the list could go on. I enjoy life to the fullest with my best friend, husband and business partner, Daniel. We created Pixel Point Creative out of a dream and made it our reality over the past three years. During those three years we worked hard at our day jobs and by night we worked passionately building our business. We made the leap as full time business owners at the beginning of 2011. Here is a little peak into what Pixel Point Creative is and what it means to me. Enjoy!
Describe a typical day at work.
My day begins at 8:00 am with coffee and breakfast. Then Daniel and I have a meeting to make sure we are on point with our daily/weekly tasks and goals.
We both wear many hats to assure all aspects of our business’ needs are met effectively. I handle everything from accounting, collaboration in design, marketing, client relations to creating and implementing Pixel Point’s quarterly and fiscal business policy and strategy. So with that, my daily tasks entail accounting, marketing strategy planning, template development, research and development, quoting projects, client relations, and creating contracts. My tasks differ so much from day to day. This is just ONE of the things I LOVE about my job!
Did you always want to own a graphic and web design business? How did you get into this field? What kind of schooling or background did it entail?
I didn’t know that I wanted to own a web design and graphic business. But I’ve always known that I wanted to own my own business. I knew I wanted to lead and to do so in a creative environment is a huge bonus! As much as the business world interests me I was also always a creative at heart. My family is full of creative people. My sister is an artist of many kinds; she is a painter, illustrator and graphic designer. My mom is a quilter, a fabric artisan, and a brilliant decorator. My dad is a music man and always nurtured both my sister and my talents growing up and he has quite the hand of an artist himself. So being around creative’s throughout my childhood meant it was in my blood, quite literally. But to find my spot within a creative business was what I needed to explore and has been my challenge for the past three years.
My creative outlets have primarily been music and photography. From playing guitar, going to punk, hardcore and indie rock shows, to sitting at the piano to write a song; music inspires me and is a huge part of my life. I love taking landscape photos and capturing life’s moments through the lens of a camera. The journey to find where I would fit in at Pixel Point Creative happened naturally. I became a human sponge; sucking up the knowledge my husband passed on to me. This has been a large part of this journey. Due to this hard work, a large part of my job now includes back- end design and strategy development for each of the templates we create.
I earned my BA in Business Management while Daniel earned his BA in Communications. My degree and experience serves our business significantly. I have a broad understanding of business operations and what it takes to maintain the health and stability of Pixel Point Creative. Daniel has grown his knowledge in the web and graphic design field through training, classes in graphic design and his freelance work over the past 15 years. Technology changes very quickly and it has been imperative that he continue to grow and learn to stay ahead of the curve. He also gained vast knowledge in his past position as the Multimedia Director at our previous employer in regard to web, print and publication design.
Is this what you hope to do for the rest of your life? If so, how do you see yourself growing in this career? If not, what else do you dream of doing? Where do you see yourself in 10 years, career-wise?
This is absolutely what I hope to be doing for the rest of my life. Our long term goals are to grow Pixel Point Creative into a leading Joomla Template provider as well as, continue to grow our client base for custom design. I see myself staying at the helm so to speak, with the future ability to bring professionals and creative’s alike to join our team. I look forward to the opportunity to impart our knowledge and philosophy to a team that exudes brilliance and enthusiasm and to bring Pixel Point Creative to a higher level while developing a fun, professional, creative, and caring organizational culture within our company. Our short and long term goal for Pixel Point Creative is to continue to promote growth with intention and balance.
We both firmly believe that the arts are essential in education and have created a series of templates to support art programs in schools around the nations. The series is called The Legacy Template Series. Each year a portion of the sales from this series will be donated to a school in need to support their art program. This library of templates will grow with time as will the gift this series will provide. Giving back to the arts through education is an extremely important goal of ours as we move into the future.
If you could tell your 17-year old self anything about your life today, what would you tell her? Is there anything you wish you would have known back then? Was there anything you would have done differently as far as your career, setting yourself up for success, etc?
I would tell my 17-year old self to slow down and live in the moment. I was always in such a hurry to see how the next chapter of my life would unfold that I didn’t savor each moment the way I should have. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely took the time to have fun, enjoy friends and college life but I look back and I always seemed to be rushing through my life. I was constantly looking ahead and at times, I would miss some pretty amazing moments. In my 30s I’ve learned to live more mindfully. As you get older you quickly realize that we are only here on this earth one time. So I learned how important it is to enjoy as many of life’s little and big moments while at the same time being able to plan for the future. So my life slogan is: living well and with intention will create balance and fulfillment.
I wish that I knew that in every moment in life we are exactly where we are meant to be. With this piece of wisdom, I learned that every stage in my life has been an essential stepping stone leading to where I am today. Every step in this journey builds the path for the next chapter in life which enables life to unfold correctly. To sum this up, my impatience got in the way of my success at times. BUT looking back, I wouldn’t do anything differently. My college degree choice, all of my life experiences and each career choice I made provided the practice and understanding I have today. All of which has enabled us to build Pixel Point Creative carefully, thoughtfully and with conviction.