Meet Meghan Kreger

We were lucky to catch up with Meghan Kreger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Meghan , we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

I used to struggle a lot with confidence in my work. I went to school for fine art, then taught myself graphic design on YouTube after college and started offering freelance design work. I always wondered what I had missed by not being formally trained in graphic design and experienced a lot of imposter syndrome. Some of it was valid because there was a lot to learn, and I only had a few years of experience under my belt. I decided to try to land an in-house design position to get some real working knowledge and to see how I stacked up against formally trained designers. I landed a product design position at a stationery company, which really boosted my confidence over three years of creating compositions daily.

I still struggled a lot with my personal creative identity—shifting from fine artist, then a graphic designer, now an illustrator? Since college, I have tried my hand at so many things – oil painting portraits, linocut art prints, brand identity, and graphic design services. I would launch and relaunch a new business on social media a couple of times each year. I started to become a bit embarrassed and just wanted to crawl into a hole until I found myself as an artist. I kind of did that for a few years! I deleted all my accounts and just worked on my stuff, with no pressure and no voices in my head left over from art school.

When I was finally ready to post my work, I started over on a new Instagram account, faceless and without letting anyone in my personal life really know. This gave me the confidence to post very authentically and not worry about what some random person from high school would think. Now, I have 60k+ followers cheering me on. So if I get insecure about my work, I have a pretty physical reminder that many people resonate with my work and that I should keep going!

It also helped to create an identity for Phthalo Ruth, so when I post work, it’s not me, it’s Phthalo. She has her own voice, and things can be right for Phthalo, but not necessarily a reflection of me. Seeing the brand as its own entity makes decisions, feedback, and the journey of the brand not so personal. It’s easier to define Phthalo Ruth than it is to define myself.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Phthalo Ruth was founded in 2022 when I was looking for a side hustle while working my full-time job at a stationery company. After a 2 year hiatus from making art, I was finally ready to rekindle my passion and get in touch with why I used to love creating so much in the first place. I picked up some crayons, and started sketching some of my favorite things: a croissant, a bottle of prosecco, a baguette, a coffee mug… The simple drawing brought me so much joy to create and to look at. I felt a sense of play and freedom that I had been very disconnected from for years.
This was our first art print and our first instagram post. Our account grew very organically from there. I started taking on commission and collaboration requests and eventually was able to quit my job. One year later, I launched my “Girls Want Dinner Parties” series and things really took off. Around that time, my husband, Emerson, with a background in art direction, joined me in building the brand. Together, we have created a brand that is all about celebrating life’s little luxuries and manifesting more moments of everyday bliss.
Right now we are focused on creating beautiful art prints for the home, but we plan to expand our product line and love collaborating with other brands who offer hand-crafted products.

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?

For my journey, it was essential to be a lifelong learner with grit and patience. I never stopped learning after school and always seized opportunities to learn new things, whether it was running the social media account for my high school job or taking the initiative to design email campaigns when I worked the front desk at a salon. I never confined myself to what I was taught in school or my job description.

My husband and I have spent many nights after work and weekends learning Photoshop, the ins and outs of Shopify, taxes, SEO, video editing—the list goes on. You must be constantly learning and willing to put in the hours for a long time. Then, you need to be patient with yourself as you become a beginner over and over again. Lastly, you must be hungry for it. This “hunger” is what I have seen make the difference between those who reach their goals and those who let their passion fizzle out. You must be relentless in your pursuit to find that “thing” or to “make it happen,” whatever that may be for you.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

I can’t overstate how valuable it is to have a life partner and business partner on this journey. Emerson and I have been together for seven years, and during that time, both of us have learned and grown so much together. He was the one to first teach me “image trace” in Illustrator, the first tool that excited me and made me want explore graphic design. He has inspired me and pushed me to be the best version of myself, both mentally and creatively. We have regular “art nights” where we engage in parallel play—me painting and him designing clothing. Having a creative business or even a creative practice can be lonely and difficult. Life would be so much harder without him by my side, cheering me on and calming me as we ride the rollercoaster of owning a business. Working with your spouse can be a challenging journey on its own, and I’m beyond grateful to have a partner on the same mission, putting in extra hours to build something, asking more from life, and following our passions.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://phthaloruth.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phthaloruth/