Starry Eyes Media
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Small Beginnings: Our Story

by | Feb 2, 2020 | Announcement

The directors and partners of Starry Eyes Media, Brandon and Cecelia.

Starry Eyes is a branding and creative agency nestled within the wild mountains of the Appalachians. Over the past five years, we have grown into a diverse team that features a variety of individuals from various walks of life. The collective result is a mixture of viewpoints, perspectives, styles, and strengths that give us a unique edge in delivering bold and daring branding and creative services. We’ve worked with a variety of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as nonprofits and state agencies such as the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture & History.

As much as you might expect or even want a charming story about how our agency got its start, let’s not romanticize it. Starry Eyes began as a two-person venture, a partnership created out of necessity and the need to subsist in a struggling economy and impoverished region.

Cecelia and I lived in an old coal camp house built in the late 1800s. It was dilapidated, drafty, and beginning to fall apart, but the rent was free. There was no startup capital for Starry Eyes, aside from the $100 we scraped together to get our business license. Aside from our tenacity, we only had our creative skills and two MacBooks. In the face of adversity, we knew we could create better promotional tools for local businesses and market our skills. We had no idea how to run a business, let alone a creative agency that serves the needs of other businesses. Our foundation and lifeline quickly became our affinity for completing projects in a timely manner and our focus on clean, attractive design-work.

I’ll always be convinced that our commitment to quality and our craft sustained us because we quickly began making a name for ourselves and procuring contracts. We kept our bills paid and our clients happy. We obsessed over how we could refine our processes and better fulfill the services we offered. We swam, albeit against the current, and two years later we opened our first public studio and office space.

Since then, we have been growing our team, improving our approach, and further developing our perspective on our place within our microcosm. We don’t want to just exist as a profitable company, we want to make a difference. We believe in progressive change, and each step forward in growing our agency is an opportunity to take an active role in providing a better future for our team members, community, and world. If you would like to take part in our journey and let us help you with yours, please reach out to us today.

Meet Brandon

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Small Beginnings: Our Story

by | Feb 2, 2020 | Announcement

Greetings! I'm the Creative Director at Starry Eyes Media, an Appalachian-based creative agency specializing in small government web and brand development. I enjoy taking a pragmatic approach to developing strategies and managing creative communications projects. In addition, I love helping small and rural communities transition into modern communication strategies by developing custom-tailored tools, such as interactive websites. Over the years, my passion for working with small businesses has evolved into a broader love of empowering the communities that sustain small businesses and their residents with digital tools that promote growth and tourism. More recently, I accepted an invitation to join the city council's Community Improvement Commission for the City of Princeton, WV. I began establishing my creative career at an early age, some nineteen years ago, when I jump-started my education in advertising and communications arts by attending Mercer County Technical Education Center before pursuing university studies. Since then, I've developed my unique skill set with a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising/Graphics Design, completed numerous freelance projects, and fully managed digital communications, branding, booking, and tour planning/managing for an indie band (while also writing and performing). Ultimately, I've helped hundreds of clients across numerous industries, including state and local government, nonprofits, food services, manufacturing/fabrication, and more. In 2015, I became the Lead Designer at the fresh and ambitious startup Starry Eyes Media. Since then, I've worn many hats, as one does with startups, but the one I've taken to heart the most is my current role as Creative Director. Though I still design and contribute to the creative process on many projects, my essential responsibilities include planning, developing, and maintaining the full complement of Starry Eyes' innovative services, internal communications systems, and processes. I also oversee the client journey cycle and a number of individual client relationships. If you have similar passions and endeavors, I welcome the opportunity to connect!

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