Why Brackish?

I had a moment a few months ago where I was introducing myself to a client - one I was really excited about the possibility of working with. When they asked me what my business name was I suddenly felt weird hearing the words “Riley and Ko” come out of my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, your specific business name will not make or break you. But I felt like I had grown up a little bit.

so, i’m overjoyed to introduce you to brackish creative.

I thought of the name while I was on vacation with my family. We go to this little area on the Florida panhandle. It’s the best of both worlds - we get the beautiful ocean ahead and a good-sized brackish water lake (Draper Lake) to the side. The area between them is ever-changing. It’s one of the most beautiful places I have the privilege of visiting.

I’ve also been slowly working with more and more brands over the last few years. I’m always trying to capture the essence of the interaction between business and customer, service provider and client. Some people believe that your branding needs to be a direct reflection of you and only you. I know that it needs to be a perfect mix of you and your clients.

Pretty quickly, the word brackish stood out in my mind. If brackish water is a combination of salt and fresh water, your brand is a combination of you and your clients. What a perfect metaphor. Combine that with my personal experience with a brackish water lake, beautiful, ever-changing, impactful, reflective of its environment. It just seemed perfect. Oh, and the domain name I wanted was available. That always helps.

Some of you have been with me since the early early Riley and Ko days. Maybe we met at a meeting of small business owners before I even had a business name. Maybe I worked with you on weddings for years and had the pleasure of doing your branding. Maybe you just lurk around. Love a lurker.

Either way, I can’t thank you enough for being here. A friend asked me how I stay self-motivated without a boss recently. As someone with some raging ADHD, I was worried about that too for a while. But my answer was so quick: I really love what I do. I’m proud to be building something and creating meaningful design for people I believe in. So welcome, thanks for being here - poke around a little bit and alert ya girl of any typos - let’s do a new thing!