As a small town business owner, your brand is your reputation…
I help small town business owners stop losing customers to a brand that doesn't reflect the business they've actually built—in a matter of days.
Generic marketing templates
Tailored-to-you assets
Weeks of back-and-forth
Professionally designed in a day
Silent customer loss
Design that earns trust
Your business is probably better than it currently looks.
You've been building the real thing: serving customers, refining your craft, earning loyalty the hard way. Design felt like a distraction from that, and honestly, at the start it probably was.
But there comes a point where the DIY version stops being scrappy and starts working against you. New customers don't have the context your longtime ones do. They're making a judgment on what they can see—and if what they see doesn't match the quality of what you actually deliver, you've already lost them. Quietly. Before you ever knew they were there.
Most business owners stuck in this pattern recognize at least one of these:
Still using the same logo, card, and website from year one, even though the business has grown past them
Spending hours in Canva producing something that looks fine but never quite right—then doing it again next month for the next flyer
Using AI-generated graphics that are fast and free, but increasingly recognizable as shortcuts to anyone who sees them
Living with a website that exists but doesn't really work—copy written for yourself, no clear reason for a stranger to stay or call
The problem isn't effort. It's that design work done this way costs real hours without producing something that actually moves the business forward.
A design and marketing intensive closes that gap in a single focused day — so you walk away with a brand that finally matches the business you've built.
What a Design & Marketing Intensive actually does for your business
You stop losing customers before they call. Your brand starts doing the work of building trust before you say a word, so the people who look you up actually reach out.
Everything looks like it belongs together. Your card, your website, your social presence — consistent, intentional, and recognizably yours.
You get your hours back. No more evenings in Canva, on your website, or in AI trying to make something that doesn't look quite right. You hand it off, it gets done, you move on.
You can maintain it yourself. Branded templates mean you're not starting from scratch every time you need a flyer or a post. The system works even when you're the one using it.
Things we can do in a Design & Marketing Intensive can include:
Look consistent everywhere
Logo
Visual brand guidelines
Canva templates/social assets
Print collateral design
Make your website work harder
2–3 page site build
Copy direction
Hierarchy analysis
Website audit with specific recommendations
Show up professionally in marketing
Flyers
Presentations
Email design
Informational documents or guides
This is not an exhaustive list, just a starting point!
If you have a punch list of random design and marketing needs, we can do that too.
One thing worth knowing: you're booking a focused day of my time, not a fixed list of outputs. How much we accomplish together depends on how prepared you come in and how available you are to review work throughout the day — which is exactly what the kickoff call is for.
Ready to book? Here’s how it works.
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Choose a day from the calendar below. A 50% deposit confirms your booking. If none of the available dates work or you'd like to talk it through first, book a discovery call or send me an email.
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Once you're booked, I'll review what you're working with and send you anything I need from you before the day. The week prior, we'll do a short kickoff call to align on priorities and make sure we use the day well.
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I'll be heads-down working on your project. We'll stay in touch through whatever messaging app works best for you. I'll check in when I have things ready for your eyes and keep moving while you get on with your day.
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After the day wraps, I'll take an hour to finalize everything and deliver your files. You'll have me available by email for 30 days for questions, tweaks, or thinking through next steps.
Not sure yet?
Let's Chat during a no-pressure 30 minute call to look at what you've got and figure out if an intensive is the right fit.
Ready for a brand system that works for you?
Download my free guide, The “Look Legit” Brand Check. It walks you through three phases: Clarify, Create, and Consistency, so you can see exactly where your brand stands, what's actually worth fixing, and how to move forward without starting over.
What People Are Saying
“Elise is very easy to work with and a smart designer to boot! The Intensive allowed me to get several projects settled and out of the way, quickly and efficiently. Being able to see her quick changes in real time allowed us to complete projects in no time at all.”
—Senior Designer, Design & Marketing Intensive Client
“Elise did fabulous work for us for a number of years. She provided a wide variety of design and graphics work for us across a variety of media channels—digital through traditional—all the while being extremely responsive, and flexible. I wholeheartedly recommend her!”
—Bill Watson, SVP Sales & Marketing
“Elise has a knack for extracting a cohesive design vision for a project, sometimes with little or unclear direction. None of our project success would have been possible without Elise’s vision and technical abilities.”
—Anthony Hernandez, Senior Communications Associate
“Working with Elise helped us articulate our purpose more clearly and brought together our work so that the sum was greater than the parts. Having a clear identity provided us with a consistent and coherent platform and we value the easy-to-use brand collateral like design guides and templates that came out of it. I recommend Elise if you need a partner to fully understand your organization's needs and execute all the elements of success."
—Ben Castleman, Founder & Director
Local roots. Professional polish.
I've been running my own business for over fifteen years — so I know what it actually feels like to wear all the hats. The bookkeeping you're not trained for, the sales conversations that don't come naturally, the marketing decisions you're making on instinct and hoping for the best.
I work with small business owners who are good at what they do but whose visuals haven't kept up. Not businesses starting from scratch — businesses that have grown, evolved, and earned real loyalty, but still look like they're in year one.
My background is in design for nonprofits and publishers through my studio, Grinstead Design Co — organizations that had to communicate credibility and trust on tight budgets, to skeptical audiences. That's exactly the problem I'm solving here, just for a different kind of client.
Design, to me, is a communication tool. It either builds trust with a stranger in three seconds or it doesn't. My job is to make sure yours does.
I live in Erie, Colorado, and I genuinely love working with the people who make small towns like this one worth living in.
