Meet Karen Paul

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Karen Paul a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Karen, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

I was either going to become a professional equestrian, or a graphic designer. I always loved to draw and paint. I loved putting shapes together and playing with graphics and negative space. Admittedly a bit of a font geek – in high school there were hours spent hand-illustrating different fonts, creating cards for family members and posters for events. Graphic design offered the perfect pairing of art, practical use, and tactile products (when I started it was all about print).

Creating something from an idea, finding the right colors, fonts, and imagery to express that idea – is exciting. Sending it out into the world is even better, and seeing clients use what I’ve created in so many different ways to market their businesses is the heart of why I do it – to help people!

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I love helping people. I work with service-based businesses, this is where my heart is. I also do quite a bit with nonprofits. My belief is that everyone deserves good design. I am driven by a need to make a difference for people in their businesses and organizations by helping them to find their core beliefs and strengths and spreading the word. When we align our businesses with our true why, it’s like a magnet that draws like-minded people to our brand. At the heart of that is the core purpose and belief systems, the values and mission we bring to our work. Tapping into all of that creates an energy that is positive and nurturing, and tends to sell itself. It’s authentic.

I love helping businesses and organizations communicate clearly through visual communication design. This includes branding and identity design, website design and development, and print and digital marketing collateral design. I also have a focus on digital accessibility – working best practices into my design process so that the products are more natively accessible to all people.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The most important qualities to me have nothing to do with design skills, they are:

– The ability to actively listen to what people are telling me

– The ability to reflect that information back to them

– And the ability to cut through the clutter to get to the heart of the messaging, goal, or bulk of information

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I am always looking for collaborators. I have collaborated with:

– Marketing Strategists and Fractional CMOs
– Web Developers
– Writers, photographers, videographers
– Artists
– Sales and Marketing managers
– Social media managers

Anyone who thinks we might make a good team is welcome to reach me at [email protected]

Contact Info:

• Website: https://elidacreative.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elidacreative/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kapaul/

Image Credits

Photography by Susan Blackburn