Creating your visual identity in the marketplace based on business strategy.
MarketingPutting your visual identity to work, in print, online, and digital media.
Art directionLeveraging your brand across multiple media platforms to build a cohesive business identity, including packaging, signage, banners, collateral, infographics and web design.
Garcés Design helps businesses gain the benefits of professional design services - ensuring you don't waste money or time.
Brief & discovery
In this phase, I gather information about your business, vision, goals, and visual style. I also hone in on competition, points of differentiation, trends, and audience. Not only does this phase help me design better, it helps you further explore and refine your brand value. After discovery, I create mood boards and client personas to define your ideal customer.
Design
I take what we learned during discovery to start designing. I create initial concepts and schedule design meetings with you for review, and feedback on direction. During this phase, I also work with you to review schedules and set deadlines.
Development & implementation
The direction from the design meeting is implemented, and I begin production. In this phase, I acquire any materials necessary to complete design and project launch, which may include partnering with creative partners to meet your project needs.
Retainer program
Outsource design, maximize your expertise.
Even if you're a local start-up, you're still building a business in our hyper-connected and hyper-visual world; branding and graphic design aren't optional. I want to create long-term relationships so clients can succeed at what they do best, with help from what I do best. To achieve this, I offer retainer options for clients who want to enhance their brand marketing - but don't want the overhead costs of hiring a full-time creative professional.
My retainer program is for existing clients, and new clients are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. All clients start with a three-month retainer contract that will be re-evaluated to make sure it meets both of our needs.
Why choose a retainer?
- Better use of your time: Gain a partner who understands your brand and business, so you don't waste time dealing with paperwork - eliminating estimates and signed contracts for each project.
- Better results: As a partner, I can ensure your marketing is consistent without hand-holding and suggest new directions to help your brand shine.
- Better budgeting: Manage costs more easily by paying a set monthly amount; the more hours you retain, the lower your hourly rate.
- Better responsiveness: With a retainer, you're pre-ordering a block of my time and schedule. This allows me to respond quickly to your needs.
Ready to retain? Here's what you need to know.
Retainer services include:
- Print: Application of your branding on print collateral: Including advertising, marketing material.
- Digital: Social media
- Website maintenance: Only for those who have websites created by Garcés Design.
Retainer services exclude: New branding work (logo design and derivatives), new website creation, and extra expenses (stock photography, website hosting, printing, etc.).
A native of Ecuador, Paulina has spent over two decades as a professional graphic designer. Her design career began in Quito, Ecuador and continued in the United States, where she worked for Gannett Inc. at their newspapers in Ithaca and Rochester. She started her freelance career to balance family time and use her talents in her true passion: graphic design.
After relocating to the Finger Lakes with her husband and two children, Paulina opened her branding and design studio: a small studio with a passion for serving Finger Lakes businesses that involve her interests such as food, wine, and start up businesses in the area.
She graduated with honors from the Rochester Institute of Technology's College of Art and Design. She was fortunate to participate in Massimo Vignelli's last Master Designer Workshop he ever imparted at the renowned Vignelli Center for Design Studies at RIT, and to whom she credits with fueling her commitment to timeless design and ethical design practices.
Paulina is a member of AIGA, the professional association for design and the Women for WineSense - Finger Lakes Chapter. She most recently got certified as a New York State Woman and Minority Owned Business Enterprise (WMBE).
Paulina also contributes her time and talents to her community, whether she's volunteering for a local charity, offering pro bono services to her childrens' school, or creating beautiful designs to help promote Finger Lakes tourism under her FLX Designs label.
"We really appreciated your great work and all the extra effort you put in. Keep up the great work!"
"We appreciate your quick attention to this project and for keeping us posted on the progress. It was all done quite professionally. We would not hesitate to recommend you to others or to use you for any future projects."
"I have worked with Paulina on a couple of different projects, the end results are so confirming that she was the right person to work with ! Home runs in both cases."
"Paulina is a pleasure to work with and her well rounded marketing expertise has given us what we had hoped for; a professional image that reinforces the high quality of our products and service!
Abtex initially contracted with Garces Design to create a logo for a newly created division. Paulina spent ample time with us to understand our business and desired direction. She then created an attractive logo that ties in well with our existing brand identity. We subsequently contracted with her to ensure branding consistency across all of our marketing initiatives. This has included letterhead, facility signage, trade show displays and wall art for our recently renovated lobby."
"Garces Design is a member of your business team that you do not want to be without! Paulina has the skills and talents to fulfill all of our graphic design needs. She helped to create a beautiful, cohesive and accurate brand for our business."
"It was a pleasure to work with such a talented, patient and cost-effective designer."
"Paulina really put Keuka Shores' marketing where it needed to be; classy, informative and cohesive. DIY marketing pieces were not the right venue for our higher-end rental townhomes, but the big city marketing firms were financially out of our league. Paulina's expertise, professional connections, and vigilant eye on our budget brought in a full array of attractive, affordable marketing pieces that will endure the test of time. I thoroughly enjoyed my collaborative experience with Paulina even when she told me my cost-cutting ideas wouldn't yield the right results. She was on time and right about everything! "