The Michelle Hickey Design Blog

Lia Griffith was one of my earliest unofficial mentors when I began my journey as an online creative entrepreneur. Everything from her designs, to projects, to tutorials, photography and even the site design, have a flawless quality, and somewhere in my naive brain, I thought that meant “effortless.” As I grew as a business owner, […]

When you run a creative business, your focus as an artist can shift from doing what you love to generating income. While I consider entrepreneurship to be an art form in itself, I can admit that running this business has stunted my creativity. I don’t remember the last time I did something creative just for […]

The term “starving artist” is quickly going extinct thanks to entrepreneurs like Kori Clark. Though she holds a degree in graphic design, she quickly realized that she missed the joy of using her talents to create art— away from the computer. Kori not only took a step back from creating digital art, but also from […]

Graphic designers have their choice of projects: branding, websites, signage, social graphics, and so on. However, not every job brings the creative fulfillment we dream of. Most of us have been forced to give up our artistic desires in the name of paying the bills at one time or another. But with a little creativity […]

I don’t have a mentor in the sense that there’s not a single person that I look to for guidance, advice, and leadership to help me make decisions in my business. What I have is more valuable. A web of resources that includes podcasts that I regularly tune in to, blogs I read, online personalities […]

The month of July was a marathon. I hustled, worked nights, weekends and had made so much progress in the plan I had laid out for the summer. In my mind, that work was complete, and I was ready to move forward with new initiatives for the end of the year. In reality, I still […]

How many times have you felt defeated before you even got started? Part of being an entrepreneur is learning to quiet those doubts and to use whatever resources you have, to keep moving forward (and up). Ashley Shelly is the epitome of a creative who crushes it in this area with her “think big, dream […]

Trying something unfamiliar can be exciting, but often comes with a dose of fear, and can leave you feeling exhausted. This week I experienced a rollercoaster of all those emotions as I took on two new projects that were outside of my comfort zone: publishing my first vlog and preparing to launch a Facebook ad […]

Sometimes thinking big means starting with the basics. For me, this was digging deep and getting to the heart of what is going to make my business thrive: my audience and their needs. Through the design of a new reader survey, I was able to uncover part of the reason why conversions have been so […]