Today we’d like to introduce you to Studio Bookmark.
We’re so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Studio Bookmark is a multidisciplinary design studio, focusing on branding, interiors, and product design. We also fabricate home decor pieces at our home studio in East Austin such as lamps, switch plate covers, and art objects. We (Hannah Freedner and Dustin Coffey) started Bookmark in the summer of 2020 in the middle of Covid lockdowns. Both of us were laid off at the beginning of the pandemic, and we spent a few months sorting out what we wanted to do next. We were sort of forced to slow down, and change directions as a result. The branding part of our business has been going since day one, because Dustin has been in that industry for almost twenty years. I (Hannah) took some online small business management classes at ACC so that I could handle that side of the business, and we spent about a year developing products, doing our own branding, building out our website, and was finally launched in early 2022.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
We’ve been very blessed over the past few years. Of course, we’ve had our challenges, and will continue to as well. Learning to work together after being a couple for almost ten years was a learning curve, but once we figured out the boundaries of work vs. everything else, it fell into place. We also bootstrapped pretty much every process to begin with; for example, we learned to code while building our first website.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Dustin: We are a full-service design studio that specializes in branding design, product design and interiors. I’ve been in the graphic design industry for close to 20 years, but had always had in the back of my mind that I’d one day want to open that up to a more multidisciplinary model. One where I was using my design talents for more than just pushing pixels on a screen. Hannah and I are both artists at our core and wanted to use that part of our lives in a more meaningful way. That we’ve been able to build a business on that is a dream come true. Our unique aesthetic is born out of the things that we love…. Modernism, painting, printmaking, Japanese design, English country living…. all of these things combined to create something very special and is the fuel that keeps us going.
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
We look at our client work as more of a collaboration than a typical client/designer relationship. We like to open up the conversation with our clients and encourage them to share what makes them tick. This helps us to dig deep and find that unique brand that feels honest to the client.
We’re currently taking on new clients for branding and interiors. We also have a line of handmade home goods at our online shop at studio-bookmark.com. Occasionally we do custom or collaborative product design, so we’re always open to requests.
Contact Info:
- Website: studio-bookmark.com
- Instagram: @studio_bookmark, @dustintcoffey, @hannahrose.was.here
Image Credits
Hannah Freedner
Dustin Coffey
