I started my business around the beginning of the pandemic.
I lost my job and then all of a sudden I felt really alone at home.
So my husband surprised me with a puppy, and actually
made me think about all the puppies that are like in shelters
and need our help. The only way that I know how to help dogs
in shelters to find forever homes would be, by making a product that
I could sell and I can donate money to those shelters
and also build up a platform to bring more
awareness to the situation.
All my bandanas are designed by independent artists.
And the fabric is actually printed in water based ink.
So I also try to help
the environment while trying to help my community.
When I started my company and my business,
I have this big vision, but I have zero experience.
So I tried to do the best I could with what I have. And I encountered
so many problems because I couldn’t actually communicate properly,
what was my mission.
When I decided to actually apply for this project,
for some reason, I just thought it was going to be, you know,
like an adviser, like an email, or like “you go girl” type of thing.
But no, it’s actually full on help. This is going to change a lot.
Like, they’re going to actually help me grow so much.
I’m originally from Colombia.
I actually started studying product design.
I moved to Spain and started studying motion graphics.
And that’s my transition from like print and product,
like a very tactile thing to a more digital approach.
I wanted to incorporate like that category,
like it’s going to be under the bandanas.
My first impression of Sylvia was she knows what she’s doing.
She’s a businesswoman and she was contagious
how passionate she is about this project.
It’s going to be more like a museum type of thing
because the bandanas there are actually from like artists
and they’re gonna come up with prints,
so it’s going to be a whole different thing.
The first task was to redesign the webpage
and to rewrite some copies.
I had this idea in mind and I feel like I‘m professional enough.
But when you look at the website, it was like, eh, it looks very amateur,
like she looks like it‘s just one person, which I am one person.
But that‘s not what I want to portray.
I think she needed this outsider‘s perspective to be like, OK,
I get which direction you want to take it.
We just have to like bring it down to a simple concept
and not try to convey so much. I am a very practical person.
I‘m like, we‘re going to make it as easy for the user as possible.
Something I really like they’ve done with Adobe Fonts is just
so intuitive. And you can just with one click, just try different things.
The workflow is just getting smoother and smoother.
It was hard at the beginning because it's like this is my baby.
You know, you get like attached
and she show me this moodboard that what she has in mind.
And she showed me the sketches for a new logo
and how we‘re going to transform my branding. And I think it's great.
I was so excited. She showed me like three different options.
And I was like, “Oh! I really like that one,” and
she’s like, “OK, let’s work with that one.” It’s very fun to work with her.
It’s very easy. Like we get along really well, actually.
This is kind of like the first iterations
of the logo we made. Defining how it would look with different
applications. And at the end we ended up with this one.
The paw reminds me of the recycling logo.
I don’t know it gives it like an organic feeling, like scrapbooky.
You can actually see, and the first thing that comes to mind is like,
oh, this is like handmade. It’s still me, but like better.
Nuggie Paw Shop is a humor, that is like very friendly.
It‘s very nice to see what you're doing from
the point of view of another person.
She opened my eyes a lot like in a lot of things that
I didn’t pay attention to because that’s not what I do.
I’m not a graphic designer.
I think I‘m most proud of the simplicity of the design.
We had such a broad concept and like to bring it down to
a simple logo that can convey so much.
I have no doubt her business is going to keep growing
because it’s about the community,
and I think people now more than ever after Covid is like we’re
really trying to help each other out.
My website looks so well put together,
like a more professional than what I had.
I feel more confident, like in reaching out to bigger stores
and trying to sell my product and my brand.
It was a very, very good experience.
I’m very happy with everything that happened. And very grateful.
I think it’s going to open a lot of doors.