Meet Karen Hofmeister of Hofmeister Creative

Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Hofmeister.

Karen, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have always had a love of arts inherited from my mother who was an insanely talented illustrator and seamstress. I was a first-generation graduate of Metropolitan State College of Denver in 2007, which is now Metropolitan State University of Denver, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Communication Design. I credit much of my success to all of the powerful women in my life including Lisa Abendroth, director of the design program at Metro. She challenged and pushed me to do great things. I was incredibly lucky to be hired on immediately after college at Monigle Associates. There I designed logos and brand design platforms for large healthcare systems, financial institutions and other corporations. It is where I immersed myself in branding and learned so much. I later moved on to Karsh Hagan and worked under an amazing Creative Director, Charlotte Isoline, who became a true mentor for me. As a successful working mother of two boys, she gave me the confidence to follow my career goals as a new mother of two boys myself.

In the Winter of 2014, I made the difficult decision to leave full-time employment and pursue building a small design studio in Erie, CO called Hofmeister. It has been the hardest, yet most rewarding journey to date—possibly harder than the birth of my children! In 2016 my brother-in-law, Tom Hofmeister, joined the company as a partner and has added his amazing talents in photography and motion graphics into our mix of offerings. We have also built a wonderful network of freelancers that have done amazing work for us and has helped us to grow. Our clients have been so great, as we have not only built working relationships, but also friendships with many of them. We strive to be a trusted creative partner for our clients—whether they need help applying creativity and design to their business or they have creative vision but don’t know how to execute it.

Throughout my career I have always made an effort to engage with the creative community through AIGA, Art Director’s Club and other creative associations. I have built garments made of paper that have walked runways for the past ten years at the Denver Paper Fashion Show as a benefit for DAVA and Art Director’s Club of Denver (now The One Club). We recently lead our first community mural project in our hometown of Erie and we had so much fun. People of all ages came out to help us paint a large red tail hawk. We’re currently polishing it up before hanging in the Erie Community Center.

In the summer of 2016, I started the group Erie Creative Collective, a local creative meetup group of creative professionals, inspired by Creative Mornings. Our mission has been to grow the creative community in Erie and the surrounding areas, get to know our local creatives, provide mentorship, inspire, and build a collaborative network through free meetups and events. The events range from formal lectures with industry experts to casual meetups like drink-n-draw, happy hours or creative field trips. Being engaged in the community has been just as important to me as working in the field. Both my business partner and I are Colorado natives and we love being part of growing, nurturing and inspiring the creative community of Northern Colorado.

In December we will celebrate our five year anniversary of Hofmeister. In those five years, we have had the honor of branding some incredible clients like Till Kitchen, Argent Pictures, IPG Event Technology and The Carbon Valley Music Festival. You may have seen our work on the big screen in feature films like Hacksaw Ridge, The Birth of a Nation, or Chasing Coral as we brought motion to Argent Pictures’ logo in collaboration with Spillt. I’m very excited about how far our business has come and look forward to the many relationships we build in the future.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Starting a business has not been a smooth road. I am a trained designer and not a trained business owner, so being a start-up came with real struggles including juggling all the needs of the business along with keeping up with the client work. With there being only two of us wearing all of the hats, it has been a challenge to do the actual client work while keeping the business running smoothly and bringing consistent work in the door. But as we are learning and becoming smarter business owners, we have gotten better at utilizing our network of freelancers, hiring an accounting firm, taking business management workshops and utilizing software to help us be successful. I feel that there is still a lot for us to learn, but I’m happy to say we are trending up and the road is getting smoother.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Hofmeister Creative – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Hofmeister brings smart, creative solutions to businesses through language, design and video. We are known for high-quality design, smart brand strategy, brand design execution, and being very easy to work with. We are most proud of the relationships we have built with our clients. Our very first client continues to work with us through a different organization today. In fact, we have several clients that have left their organizations or companies and have moved on to new positions where they have asked us to work with them again. It’s a proud moment when we are asked to do repeat business, have been carried over to new organizations, or receive referrals from past clients or colleagues. Our business relies heavily on word-of-mouth referrals.

What sets us apart in our industry is passion for quality service, creativity, personal integrity and our understanding of what makes brands valuable. We know what it takes to communicate a brand successfully, whether it be in print, digital, social, motion or verbal. We educate clients on what is means to brand a business. Branding is more than a logo but is also how your business sounds, looks, moves or even smells—and how those aspects of the brand are or are not attracting the right audience or customer.

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Our future plans are to grow and open an online shop where we will sell art prints and merchandise featuring our designs. We are hoping to add to our team in the next two years. We are also working on developing some of our own video training and education products, which are still in development.