This Genoa Township firm is putting creativity front and center

GENOA TWP. — A group of local creative professionals — including graphic designers, illustrators and brand marketers — have teamed up to launch a new creative design firm in Genoa Township.

Partners include a poster-marker who went viral on Instagram; an entrepreneur and co-owner of a health-focused café set to open soon in Howell; his sister, the sales guru; an illustrator with dreams of opening a tattoo shop; an experienced designer with an art background; and a cultural coordinator with project management and leadership skills.

Their business, Prima Creative, launched earlier this year at 4336 E. Grand River Ave.

Miranda Flinchum, who co-founded the design firm with Bradley Savino, said the goal is to make companies and brands "indispensable."

"When you have your own creative 'you,' nobody else can replace that, and every single person inside of them, I think, has that indispensable personality," Flinchum said.

But some people, she said, need help to pull that personality out.

Prima Creative offers digital, print and branding services — including marketing, web design, advertising, and graphic design. They create logos, websites, social media campaigns, posters, billboards, pamphlets, and other materials.

Since opening earlier this year, the firm has worked with small businesses and Fortune 500 companies, mostly based in Michigan.

The team met while working for a printing company. They decided to strike out on their own.

"We were in the motions and doing tons of work for tons of different companies, but it just didn't feel right, didn't feel very fulfilling," Savino said. "But, along the way, we did learn things we liked about the industry: the branding aspects, the marketing and advertising, the graphic design elements, the artwork itself.

"We're all, in one way or another, artists at heart, so I guess we enjoyed those components of what we were doing and we really wanted to develop it into something more."

The way people do business, he said, is changing.

"It's going to be more and more important that brands and companies are able to get on the same level as the consumer or empathize with the consumer, and it's not going to be such a selling culture as we're so familiar with," he said. "We want to help brands and companies engage in a more authentic way."

The team also hopes to promote creative professions among youth, including a possible mentorship and scholarship program.

"I've been an artist ever since I was little, and I found graphic design in high school when I took a multimedia class, and that's where I found out that I could do this as a career," Paulina Pulawska, the viral Instagram artist, said.

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"Every single job you can think of, they need a creative in one way or another," Flinchum said. "It's just that creatives, we're kind of pushed in the back for a very long time, especially in our public school systems. It's just bringing those people out forward and making them stand out a little bit more."

The business, meanwhile, is about "bringing out the personalities of each person you work with," Jackie Mroz, the tattoo artist, said.

"We want everyone to shine in their own special way."

— Contact reporter Jennifer Eberbach at jeberbach@livingstondaily.com. 

This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: This Genoa Township firm is putting creativity front and center