PART I: Why I started Stella Bea Design Co. LLC

Hi, there! I am so happy to finally be writing the first post on my blog. It has been a journey to get Stella Bea Design Co. up and running and the road to get here has been long and winding. Graduating in 2021 was such a bittersweet moment for me. This was supposed to be an exciting moment, it was the beginning of my professional design journey, and it came in the middle of such a difficult time for our world. I think all differences aside we can all agree that these past 3 years have been beset with challenges for everyone.

For me, the last 3 years have been a road filled with obstacles I am still working to overcome. Losing both my grandmothers in the midst of a global pandemic had a huge effect on my mental health. These two very influential women in my life left me within 6 months of one another and so many other unpredictable events happened as well in the days leading up to graduation. In a matter of 3 months, I had changed my mind about moving to California for grad school and changed my plans completely post-graduation. To be honest, as a Type-A person, who likes to map out her life ten steps in advance I was feeling pretty lost that first month after graduation. All of my objectives had changed entirely and for the first time in my life, I found myself without a plan. However, I am lucky enough to have an extremely strong support system amongst my family, friends, and even college professors. One of those professors had recommended an internship to me with ADCOM, a marketing agency in downtown Cleveland, and I was lucky enough to land the job just days before their internship start date. I spent the rest of the summer working alongside some wonderful people who made a difficult time for me so much easier.

At the end of the 3-month internship, I made the tough decision to part ways with ADCOM and explore my interest in production design by working on the Prop Crew of the Netflix film that was shot here in Cleveland in 2021. On the crew, I met some amazing people from all over the country and even had the opportunity to see Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig up close and personal during days when I got to work on set. All in all, I was so grateful to have landed the opportunity and work on such a big-name film and finished up 2021 doing my little part to help make a Hollywood movie.

At the start of 2022, I began increasing my design freelance clientele while working part-time for my dad, as a design consultant for his house-flipping business. My freelance work really started to pick up by the end of January, so I decided to start making moves toward developing a professional brand for my business and move away from using my own name for contract work.

PART II coming soon...