Deja Jackson Howard – Making It on Your Own, a Fork in the Road, and the Numbers Don’t Lie – Ep44

Deja is the Founder and Creative Director of Dejamakes Creative Studio in Chicago. Her focus is on the brand and web design, and she primarily works with small business owners and founders who've DIY'd themselves into oblivion and have realized they're ready for a brand experience that combines strategy and storytelling. But before starting her career in sports advertising and eventually working for her dream company, Twitter, Deja played D1 basketball for the University of Pennsylvania, so she's a hooper, y'all, don't get it twisted. Since evolving from an athlete to a designer and saying "peace out" to Elon and Twitter, she binged-watched everything on Bravo (shoutout to Dorinda Medley lol) and is out there making things happen on her own. Between lattes and walks with her dog, Goose, she's crafting thoughtful brand identity systems, wedding invitations, and short-form content to help you get to the next level. Tune in for a talk about how a "fork in the road" led to her decision to leave the corporate girly life behind, how saying yes to design changed everything, and how she measures progress and success for her design studio. Follow Deja on Instagram @dejamakes, and check out more of her work on her website: dejamakes.com. Remember. Quality over quantity, and the numbers don't lie. Questions for this interview. Can you tell us about the kind of small business owners and founders you typically work with? Who's the GOAT between Jordan, Kobe, and LeBron? If you look back on your time playing basketball at UPenn through a professional lens, how has being part of an organized, competitive team helped you run your design studio today? Thinking back, what convinced you that you could make it on your own? Had you already done something to prove to yourself that you could? Can you tell us about the time you tried selling merch featuring famous people and got a cease-and-desist? How do your live mood board sessions work? Do you do that with all of your brand identity clients? Can you walk us through your approach to writing your website copy? What do you feel is the most important thing to communicate to potential clients visiting your site? Why do you limit the number of projects you take on? Do those decisions have anything to do with quality over quantity? You also design wedding invitations, but don't advertise it. Did you intentionally bury that information on your site? Why is that information so hard to find? How has your intake and onboarding process changed over the past 4 years, and how has it improved? Can you tell us about your shift to a "Numbers Don't Lie" mindset and what that means? Which aspect of the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women: Black in Business program do you feel best aligns with an area of your business where you find yourself struggling, and how do you think you'll benefit from participating? Can you share information for a few women of color we should be following and paying attention to? ---If you LIKE what you hear, please subscribe and keep listening. Sharing this episode with someone is the best way to support the podcast. If you LOVE what you hear and want to help me keep the interviews coming—consider buying me a coffee on Ko-Fi.Also, I'm always looking for questions from listeners. If there's a burning question you want to hear answered on the podcast, please email it to me at [email protected] @studentsofdesignpod on Instagram for updates, episode drops, and behind-the-scenes content.The music you hear on the podcast is Accident by Timothy Infinite and PUSH !T by Nbhd Nick.studentsofdesign.simplecast.com