Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / Hyalite Designs Creator Katie McKinstry Stylos | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 45

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Hyalite Designs Creator Katie McKinstry Stylos | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 45 · Beyond The Trailhead

• speaker-0: Welcome back to Beyond the Trailhead. We're taking a little bit of a twist today with a new type of business. It's not a new business, but it's a it's a creative business that I thought I really wanted to have on ⁓ the pod. And ⁓ we have Katie Stylos with ⁓ highlight designs here. How are you doing Katie? speaker-1: I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on. speaker-0: Awesome. Well, I I found your artwork on Instagram and TikTok. and I just kind of fell in love with ⁓ the stuff that you create. And so me being a photographer and videographer and stuff like that, I I love the the stuff that you made and the the way that you make it. And so I'll put some examples on the screen and I'll let you explain it all. ⁓ but it's it's really, really cool. I'll and I'll I'll probably put a couple of your ⁓ your reels on the screen too. So ⁓ people can see it and if you're listening then you can check it out in the description because it is incredible. ⁓ but want to have you on and just talk a little bit about who you are, the process of it, and really how people can, you know, at the end of this whole thing, how people can can get ⁓ your artwork because it is, it is super, super cool. Anytime I'm in the mountains, I'm just like, ⁓ I need to get these mountains made up into to what you make. So Katie, I I won't I won't spoil it for everybody. I'll let you kind of handle that, the rundown on who you are and what you do. So without further ado, go for it. speaker-1: Yeah, gosh, thank you so much for all those really nice words and your compliments. ⁓ I'm blushing. ⁓ but yeah, my name is Katie Stylos and I'm an artist, a graphic designer, and a professional climber. And ⁓ my business is called Highlight Designs. And Highlight is ⁓ actually it's a type of opal, ⁓ but it's named my business is named after the canyon that is near where I live. Highlight Canyon. And ⁓ that's where I do a ton of my climbing. And it's just kind of a place that means a lot to me. And so and honestly inspires a lot of my work. So that's kind of where that came from. But yeah, I think my work and what highlight designs really revolves around is being outside and being inspired by the places that we love to go and the places that we love to experience and So my work, mm main part of the work that I do is making art out of old climbing rope and specifically the idea of reusing something that would be thrown in the trash otherwise. Yeah. ⁓ and so as a climber, like we use these ropes obviously as our lifelines and something that connects us to the people that we are with being outside and being in the mountains. And then over time you can't use it anymore ⁓ for safety reasons. And so A lot of the a lot of the time you have kind of this sentimental value towards rope and then just like you don't really want to throw it away and then it like sits in your garage and you're like, what am I gonna do with this? And so yeah, so I kind of had that and started making and there's a whole long story of how I got into it, but anyways, now I'm taking that climbing rope. People donate the climbing rope and I make art out of climbing rope. So it's not going in the trash. Yeah. And now we can hang it on our wall and enjoy it for years to come. ⁓ and then the other side of my business is doing graphic design, ⁓ which includes logos and pamphlets and magazine stuff and everything you can think of, that kind of thing. So that's just like a very quick kind of gist of that. speaker-0: Yeah. So have you always been an entrepreneur or d were you working a like a job before you like how did you what was the first ⁓ yeah w without the graphic design part of it, like the f what was the first time or how did you just go, Hey, I'm just gonna start cutting up ropes and making it into art? Because that's not something that people just naturally do, I think. speaker-1: Yeah, totally. ⁓ I would definitely not call myself an entrepreneur. I would call myself very driven. Yeah. ⁓ and a definite like a goal setter and ⁓ a go-getter. ⁓ I've always been that way. And I grew up actually in the horse world and I was a competitive horse rider and ⁓ I worked really hard ⁓ for years with horses and was very Gerban that way. And when I got out of that, I kind of got into climbing. And then I was kind of in a place in my life where I was like working at the climbing gym and not really sure what I was going to do. And knew that working at the climbing gym was maybe not something I wanted to do for forever. And my dad was in the military for my entire life. And so he had the GI Bill and it was going to expire. When I turned twenty six and at the time I think I was twenty two or something like that. And he was like, Hey, if you wanna use this, you gotta do something with it kinda and I was like, Okay. So I went to the local university here in Bozeman, Montana State, and I s opened up a pamphlet and I started flipping through it and I was like, What career could work well with ⁓ wanting to travel and kind of make up my own schedule and and working with people, ⁓ but also something that was kind of challenging. And ⁓ I landed on graphic design. So I applied for school and got into it and did four years of graphic design. But I knew right when I had gone into school that I wanted to work for myself and I wanted to start a business. And so literally this my sophomore year I registered my business with the state and I immediately started picking up anything that I could ⁓ and working ⁓ just like easy little tiny jobs while I was in school. Yeah. So by the time hopefully I got out of school, I wasn't expecting to have my business be full blown happening. Yeah. But I wanted it to at least be on the ground running. And so I didn't want to be registering my business and starting this one on the day that I was graduating. Like I wanted the I knew what I wanted to do and I wanted to try to get that going before. ⁓ and so I obviously the graphic design was the direction I was going, but I wasn't expecting the rope arc to be as big as it is. And I while I was working in the climbing gym, there's a ton of climbing rope and we're constantly changing the ropes out and there was We'd have like a big pile in the back of just like old used climbing rope. And some people would come in and use it and for different projects or make like ⁓ you know, dog leashes, belts, bags, stuff like that. ⁓ but there was a gal I was working with who was doing something really similar. She was making rugs out of them. and I was like, Well, I want to try to do that. So I kind of picked it up and ⁓ was made one for myself. And then over time she decided that she didn't want to do it anymore, kind of gave me her blessing. And then it's evolved from there to where now I don't do, I don't make rugs at all. ⁓ because they don't last. But now it's all just wall art specifically. ⁓ and it's kind of just totally blossomed from there. And I wasn't really expecting that to kind of be the majority of my business, but it is. So yeah, I mean, it's ⁓ it's been a bit of a journey of not really knowing what direction it was gonna go. And then really the rope arts kind of taking over. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. No, it like I when I watch some of your videos where you're putting together, I'm I'm like, okay, then I'm an artsy kind of person, but it's like it's like a jigsaw puzzle when I see like, okay, what color where it goes? How does this go here? And I'm like, I'm sure you've got a system down now, but ⁓ when when you when you started doing it, were you already because you had that blessing from the person who was doing the rugs and stuff before, did you kind of already know? what you're pricing your stuff at, or did you kind of have to work to get your to your prices to where it is? 'Cause I know every art piece is completely different, right? And so some of them take longer, the sizes are different. And I I think as entrepreneurs, when you're when you're creating your business or and especially when you're an artist, it's hard to really sometimes put a value on like each one is your baby he, you know? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. The pricing has probably been one of the hardest parts of this. Yeah. pricing artwork is so tight lip. It's I really and like one of the things I remember being in school and pushing we it was it was a class on the history of graphic design. And I pushed really hard. I'm like, I really like to do a whole segment on kind of the history of pricing design work. Yeah. And he's like, that's not a thing. I was like, what do you mean that's not a thing? I was like, people have been charging for hand painted signs and all sorts of stuff for years. It's like, why? And there's just there's literally nothing on it. And so my first piece that I ever did that I decided to sell. Yeah, I was like, well, I don't know what to charge for this. So I just threw out a number. I think it I think the first piece I did was a 20 by 30. Yeah. I think I charged $250. Yeah. And I put it on Facebook Marketplace just because of like. I don't have a, you know, I was like, I'm not gonna put this on my website. I don't have enough traffic for this. I don't have enough people on my social media. I don't even know if I want this to be kind of the direction of my social media. So I just put it on marketplace as almost like an anonymous like artist out in the world. And it sold to like somebody in Oregon. And I was like, cool. You know, okay. ⁓ and so from there, you know, I started to kind of keep that pricing because it worked. And then eventually, like kind of slowly started to raise it. But then I went to an art gallery in town and I was selling some work through the art gallery and the gal sat me down. I mean, granted, the gallery's taking 40% of your of the sale, right? So they take a pretty big percentage. And she sat me down and she was like, you know, Katie, your work is way undervalued. Like we for us both of us to be like making money in this, we have to raise the prices. And so having a professional in the in the fine art industry be able to like talk to me in a sense that was like we need to make this profitable for you as the artist but also for me as the salesperson and that was very helpful but the thing is about art is you just don't know you're like you're kind of just going off of like maybe somebody's willing to pay for this maybe they're not and ⁓ and now all of my work it's obviously we're X amount of years in, we're like six or seven years in now, but now it's all charged by the square inch. Yeah. And then depending on if it's a custom piece, I charge a custom design fee and extra charges for multiple edits within the custom design. So it's evolved from like, okay, this person's asking for six edits on this custom thing. I got a charge for my time. Yeah. speaker-0: No exactly. speaker-1: know, and so it's all been a huge learning process of being like, Okay, I've lost money on this commission because I've done more edits than I my time was worth. Yeah. Kind of thing to now I have more of an understanding of where I'm at. But it's very tight lit. You know, it's taken a long time for me to figure out what is what's worthy of like pricing. But on top of that, I've really wanted to make sure that like, you know, I'm not obviously think the price for example The first piece I sold 20 by 30, $250. Yeah. Now a 20 by 30, you're looking at around eleven hundred dollars. ⁓ and so obviously the price has gone way up. But at the same time, I've had to consider the fact that like, what is my time worth? What am I spending on my website? What am I spending on ⁓ my education that's going into this, that's continuing to go into this? What about my materials? ⁓ what about the shipping? Because shipping is really expensive for the art. But then on top of that, if you were to be a painter, you can paint the piece. You spend all this time and energy painting the piece. And then you take a professional photo of the piece, and then you can continue to get piece prints of a piece for however forever, right? For however long you want to sell that, you'll continue to get money. Every single piece I make is one of a kind. It's not possible to replicate. And the price needs to reflect that. Like every piece that goes out in the world is a hundred percent unique. Like even if I were to take a photo of it, it's not you're not gonna get the effect that is a textured rope piece through a photo. Yeah. And so the price reflects the fact that everything is hundred percent unique. speaker-0: That's cool. I'm glad that you figured out because I literally my my wife and I were at a friend's house who's opening up their own business and we had this whole thing about pricing and stuff. And we were like, it we were talking about it's better to start something than to be perfect. And they were like, Totally. I was like, just start it and you'll start to figure out, you know, you you can't get everything a hundred percent. You'll start to figure out kind of your pricing model, what works. It's it's easier to go down in price than it is to come up in price. So like for you to go up is great. Cause I know when I did ⁓ and I still do, but when I do wedding photography, my first photo shoot when I finally started doing pictures, I was like, Well I'll charge them fifty dollars for pictures. Right. And then I'm like, wow, they pay me fifty bucks to take pictures. This is crazy. All right, we're going out for dinner. And then I'm like, okay, if I want to do this for a living, now I know I've got to be charging, you know, seven or eight, ten thousand dollars for An event and stuff like that. So Exactly. ⁓ and that that's ⁓ you made a good point too. Like for your thing, you can't just do prints, you know, like you can't duplicate it. You I mean you like you said, you could, but you're not gonna have the texture and the memories behind it and everything else. ⁓ Yeah. So what's the w I guess this is just a cr random question, but like what's the largest piece that you've ever done? speaker-1: Yeah. So the largest single piece I've ever done, I w I'm pretty sure was forty-eight inches by thirty-six inches. Anything kind of above that starts to get too heavy. Okay. ⁓ so climbing rope weighs a lot. Yeah. And even that I've really had to figure out how do I send this to somebody and how the heck do they hang it on their wall. Yeah. So my husband, he's been very helpful in like designing pieces with like a French cleat on the back, you know, like hanging systems that work really well for something that weighs a lot of you know, a pound pounds. So but the largest piece I've ever done from there, I've started to split it up into what you call a triptych, which essentially is three individual pieces that make up one large piece. And I'm trying to remember. the size of it, but it was something like I want to say it was maybe like forty inches tall by like ninety inches wide. Yeah. Or something like that. It was quite big. ⁓ and then you're working on three individual pieces that create one giant image. ⁓ and so that it's been a while since I've done something that big, mostly because I've been moving around my studio space a ton and I'm not really in a place to make something that big because it does, it takes a ton of ton of room to like lay out the pieces. Like I have like pictures of me like on the floor with the boards and like drawing and everything 'cause everything's hand drawn onto the boards before ⁓ before the rope go goes on. And I need like a big space to be able to do that. So that's speaker-0: Cool. So if someone's listening and they have like a corporate boardroom or or you know an outdoor store or something like that, they need to go to your site and get you to make them something cool and custom. Cause I've I know for my photography, I've had like the Atlanta skyline printed like it was a panel that I did and it was six six panels, I think. And it was, man, I mean it was ⁓ probably about twelve or thirteen feet wide. By like four or five feet tall. And I'm just like the the picture that they they ordered was more expensive than the picture that I actually they paid me for the photo shoot. So people don't understand how much the cost like you said, shipping and everything else is the art part of it, making it for what it is. I think the thing that you create is so cool for, you know, not just the climbing space, but of course like the whole outdoor industry. Cause The mountains that you you you make and then the custom artwork that I've seen you do ⁓ is just so cool. ⁓ I guess a a question I r always ask everybody is like, is there like an ⁓ crap moment that I know you kind of alluded to pricing a little bit, but there was there anything like that's a crazy story where it's just like, Man, this this absolutely sucked or you wasted money on something or something like that, that you're just like, but then, you know, it ended up for the better. Or maybe it wasn't for the better, maybe it's just an ⁓ man, I'll never do that again. speaker-1: Yeah, that's such a good question. I don't ⁓ I feel like I've been I've tried to be very careful to I'm to not have this moment where I'm like, ⁓ shoot. I'm about to like ruin this entire thing. ⁓ but so with that being said, I think my biggest moment isn't necessarily financially, but it's more mentally on the burnout scale. ⁓ and so I've experienced like extreme burnout in my past and to the point where like I don't even do the things that I used to love to do that used to bring me joy. And so I've had moments in my business where I like I'll go really hard and then I'm like, wow, I'm really starting to hate this. Yeah. You know, and that's kind of the ⁓ crap moment where I remember having like you know, an entire spreadsheet of all these people that I've committed to to do commissions work, commission work for. And, you know, ⁓ I've started working on pricing and sizing and it goes on and on and on and on. And I'm just saying yes and yes and yes and yes and yes. And then I s I'm getting to the point where I'm looking at this and I'm like, this is literally not possible. Yeah. I somehow have all of this like years of work and no time for any of this, no energy for any of this. And then the quality of my work started to to decline. Yeah. Where I'm like looking at the design work and looking at it through a professional eye of being like, the composition of this piece is bad. Yeah. Like the color theory in this piece is bad. Like this is not work I'm proud of. I'm not going to put this piece that this person just paid money for in my portfolio. Yeah. Like I don't want to claim that piece. And that was definitely like kind of an ocean moment of like, you're gonna ruin this for yourself. Like you're gonna ruin this success and you're gonna ruin the relationship you've created with your clients because you're not taking care of like your burnout, your mental health space and where you're at ⁓ artistically, creatively, to the point where you're gonna completely just demolish your business because people are gonna start looking at your work and being like, yeah, her work six months ago was really good. And now all of a sudden it feels like she's just pumping out shitty designs. Yeah. And that's not what I wanted. So then I had to go back and email every single one of those people and be like, Hey, I know I've committed to this. I can't do it. Yeah I'm one person, this where I'm at. You know, and I it's not it's something that I've done like twice now. And I look back and I'm like, I have to figure out how to stop it from happening earlier because it feels terrible when it happens. And it's I gotta be careful because it's really bad. So speaker-0: How did you go from being burned out and or are you still kind of because I I know I I'm a I'm a very yes person, right? And ⁓ my wife's always like, you need to say no more. And I'm like, no, but I I'm like, no, if I I can do this, then I know I can do it. And she's like, especially when we were like super busy with with weddings, when we were like a hundred percent of our income was from the weddings and stuff like that. It was like, okay, I'm doing three weddings on a weekend. I've only had X amount of sleep, and I'm like, okay, I have to. turn away work at some point. So do you now just kind of say, Okay, I can only do I have you gotten to a flow where it's like, okay, I have this amount of time, I can you have to say no 'cause it's it's great to say no, 'cause then it kind of means like if you you can kind of go, ⁓ maybe I can raise my prices more now because I'm so in demand, you know? speaker-1: Totally. Yeah. I I think it's it's more of just a feeling of like sometimes I'm really motivated. And when I'm really motivated, I'm like, let's go. Let's let's get some work done. I wanna be in my studio. I wanna be creating and I and I'll get like I'm like, ⁓ my god, I all these ideas. And when I get the ideas, that's when I get really psyched on like doing a big drop. And so like To tangent, most of my work. ⁓ I do a lot of commission work, but a lot of my work, I make a bunch of work in advance and I sell at like a specific date and time. And I call that like my drop. ⁓ and when I'm feeling really artistically motivated, that's when I do a drop usually. and it's because I it's like I have all these ideas and I just want to create. Yeah. and so it's the moments where I'm like. doing something and like the last thing I want to go do right now is sit in my studio. The last thing I want to do right now is be designing this piece or I just need to get this done. I just need to get this done. I need to draw this out and send it to the client. You know, like that's usually an indicator of like, okay, you're starting to get burned out. And so I really try to find the balance of being like, right now we're working. And because I like you know, my work can ebb and flow and I work for myself, right? I can like kind of make some money in advance and take a little time off. I'm like, all right, let's go climb for a little bit. Like let's go do some hiking. Let's do a backpacking trip. Let's come back and do some work. Let's, you know, and so I I don't ever see myself working, you know, the same hours every single day. It's more of just feeling of like, okay, this week we're gonna work really hard. We're gonna get ton of hours in. And then next week I'm gonna take a little time off and I'm gonna relax and I'm gonna go do this. And then next the next week I'm gonna do kind of half workload. You know, and so it's more just feeling of like where I'm at. But with that being said, it's I have the luxury of doing that now. That wasn't necessarily the case earlier on when you're just trying to get things going and off the ground. You're just kind of taking whatever you can. You're always saying yes. And I feel like you're talking about being a yes person. Oftentimes you have to be a yes person when you're getting your business off the ground because there you can't say no. Like that, like so much of business is word of mouth and and creating community. And so you have to say yes to create those connections. And so early on, I feel like that hard work and that yes mentality create like can foster burnout. And so you have to be extra careful. And I have a little bit of the luxury now to To kind of say yes to projects I'm psyched about and no to projects that I'm not inspired by, which makes a big difference too. speaker-0: That's cool. I I love that like you're you sound like you do exactly what I do, where it's it's like okay, I I you you get inspired and then you just go. And then sometimes like now that my my wife does social media and everything else now, where she went to Georgia Tech for ⁓ technology and everything else. And so she always she laughs like she's like, Now I'm doing like comedy videos. Like who would have thought? But now that she has to edit videos. She goes, man, now I understand why sometimes it takes you a while to get sitting down and doing a video because you have to be inspired or motivated to go, okay, ⁓ I've got it. Now I've got that an idea in my head of how I want the edit to go or how I want these these pictures to be edited for this one client and stuff like that. So yeah. So yeah. And then you have that luxury of it when you run your own business, but it's also your downfall because you have that flexibility, right? And you're like, Yeah, I should be getting this done. And But like my my friends who have ⁓ full time jobs, they we just had this a discussion again last night. ⁓ we were talking like, hey, you don't have the you have no idea how it is when you're like waiting for the next project to come in to pay the bills and the stress of it, versus just like, ⁓ I know this week I get paid this much every week and then I get a bonus if I do well. You know? And so ⁓ it has its ups and downs. That's what I'm telling my daughters, like, hey, and when you're going to do marketing and stuff like that, you're gonna it's gonna be great. But you're gonna have these creative blocks that are just like, you've just gotta fight through. Like you said, go and do something you love to do. Like I texted her today and she's like, Yeah, I'm at the park and I went for a five mile hike just walking around and now I feel fresh. Now I'm gonna go do my homework because I now I'm like my brain's kind of like back to center. So yeah, that's cool. So ⁓ I guess my next question is ⁓ you know, something that's changed your mind since you've launched your company, like. speaker-1: Yeah, I love that. speaker-0: Now that you do this, what's one thing that you would say you would if you were talking to your your younger self or earlier self, you would say, ⁓ you should have done this at the beginning and it would have been better right now? speaker-1: Totally. Yeah. I think one of my biggest regrets is I wish I had established my brand earlier on and stuck to it. ⁓ and I don't know if this is just because I'm a designer but and like can't make up my mind about what I want my business to look like. But this I wish I had like I I wish I had the vision to know that In my second year of design school, I was not going to be able to design as good of a branding package for myself as I would have at the end of my four years of design school, which that seems so insane to say. You're like, well, of course you'd be better. Yeah. But, you know, I was like, I just want to get this going. So I like made a crappy logo and whatever and then had it. And then, you know, post school, when I was like, all right, it's time to like do this full time, you know, I ended up redesigning everything. And had to change everything out. And then even now I'm like, ⁓ I kinda wish I wanna I kinda wanna redesign everything again. Yeah. And that's just like I wish I had just stuck to the guns of like, let's just do one thing at a certain point when we feel good about it. And now I just feel like I haven't really committed to how I want the brand to feel. And it's like kind of slowly ever changing. And ⁓ I have regrets about that because then you spend extra money on your marketing, right? On your business cards, on the way that your website looks, on merch, stuff like that. And the fact that it's like I want it to be incredibly recognizable when people see it and when people see my work. And it's just kind of been little tiny changes all the time. And I haven't feel I don't feel like I've really committed to anything. And it's really biting me in the butt now. Yeah. ⁓ Like I've done a better job with my branding, but there's still like I've never fully committed to my brand as much as I've committed to clients' brands. Yeah. And like been like, here are the guidelines to your brand. This is the no. This is the yes. Like you're never using this type of face on this type of photo. Like I never have done that for myself. And now I'm I'm dealing with the fallout of that. So I wish I had done that earlier on, but not as early as I originally did it. Yeah. Kind of thing. speaker-0: I think that's like like you know, people who if they're in construction, you go to their house and they have so many construction projects. The last thing you wanna do is do the work for like, you know, people who do are social media managers, they might manage social media for channels that have hundreds of thousands of followers or millions followers, but you know, their social media has couple hundred, right? Right. And then people go, Well, you don't have enough social media followers and yet you're telling me you're want to manage my social media and you're like, but you don't understand. Like I don't have time to grow my own social media because I'm growing other people's social media. You know? So but yeah. So don't be so hard on yourself because I think everybody everybody's like that. I'm totally like that with like our our I the last thing I want to do is take pictures for I love my family. Right. But the last thing I want to do is do family portraits. speaker-1: Hundred percent. speaker-0: ⁓ or do like a funny video because I don't want to edit video more because I've just been sitting editing video or taking pictures and stuff like that. So ⁓ but that that's good because that's literally what we had I feel like I'm having a deja vu from the conversation I had with my friends last night with their company because Nice. You know, we're trying to tell them like like we had talked about earlier, like it's better to be better to start it than to be perfect, better be done than perfect, and then you can always tweak it. Yes, you still want to be excellent and what you create and everything else, but you can't perfection is like, you know, it's impossible to be perfect. Right. But you can at least get get started at that 80%. And then that twenty percent can come ⁓ as you're kind of designing and and stuff like that. ⁓ I'm gonna ask you one one last question. ⁓ and then ⁓ and then from there I kind of want to go into just kind of get to know a little bit more about you and then kind of where people can find you and stuff like that. And You know, and I didn't know you did graphic design. So what kind of stuff ⁓ do you do for graphic design? Like what is your bread like what is your like niche for that? speaker-1: Yeah, I really love creating branding packages for people. So logos, social media icons, color palettes, typography. Okay. ⁓ fonts is what typography means if that didn't fly with people. But ⁓ I love helping people create brands, small businesses specifically. ⁓ I've done all sorts of logos. People can see kind of my portfolio online. I'm actively working on updating it. So ⁓ yeah, but I the but I do like everything from I've done t shirts for different companies, I've done hats, I've done posters, ⁓ I do horse show they're like horse show like welcome pamphlets with like the ride times and stuff like that and basically pretty much everything you can think of, like booths for expos. ⁓ big signage for expo stuff, ⁓ all vehicle signage, all sorts of stuff. But the stuff that I really love to do is like logos and branding. ⁓ I would say the majority, I would say like it ebbs and flows. So obviously it can get really cold where I'm at, which is in Bozeman, Montana. So I'll tend to do a little bit more design work. Try to do that in the winter months versus like summer months. I like being outside in the studio because it's not Heated. ⁓ so I would say roughly things kinda work out to be like thirty percent design work, seventy percent rope work, and then things kinda ebb and flow depending on depending on the year. speaker-0: Okay. Okay, cool. I I was so I was like, ⁓ she does that too, so want to know. Okay, so I guess my last question before we go into our kind of lightning round to get to know you a little more is what's the weirdest or most unexpected place your product has ever shown up? speaker-1: ⁓ my gosh. this one's a new ⁓ like a koozie. Okay. Like ⁓ a it's like a picture of the rope art on a koozie. Okay. That was very unexpected, but somebody was like, I want to, I love this. I'm like and to me, like a photo of the work does not express the work at all because it's like every single piece of rope has memory. Yeah, right. It's like this ⁓ this rope went up Denali and then it did this ice climb in Colorado and then it did this crazy risk rescue. And then for a lot of years it was a tow rope in the back of my truck, you know. And so everything has memories. And so to like take a picture of it, you just don't get this like connection with the piece. And so like, sure, I would never want a photo of that, but sure. And they're like super psyched on it. So yeah, yeah, that was very kind of like a recent surprise that people wanted that. So speaker-0: So so in your studio, like ⁓ 'cause I I do sol soldering soldering, I don't know why I said it like that, but I've done soldering before and stuff like that. So and I always see in your videos, like, you know, you're cutting the rope. So like you're pr y you have proper ventilation and and everything. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, that's like people get really all up in arms about the ventilation. And I've just I've just stopped trying to like fight the trolls on it. But the which is fair. People have concerns, and that's fine. And I get it. Which is because the so ro climbing rope is made of mostly nylon, which is plastic. And so when it burns, it aerosolizes and it's really dangerous. Yeah. Which is fair. ⁓ so I wear a full mask with like specific filters that actually filter that out. And then my studio, like I said, is not heated. Yeah. ⁓ it's totally open on one side. And so air is coming in. And then I have a fan system that pulls that smoke away. So there's obviously big ventilate or like air within the space itself. And then I have fans, two fans that like pull the smoke outside of the building and then I'm wearing the mask on top of it. With that being said, in the videos oftentimes I'll take the mask off just to do speaker-0: That's what I was w I was gonna ask. I like, I'm pretty sure you just take it off for speaker-1: Yeah. Mostly because it's like it's anybody that's trying to get a small business business off the ground, and maybe it's not even small. Anyone who is on social media understands that the algorithm is the worst thing in the world and it's constantly changing. The one thing that is consistent with the algorithm is it wants to see it does better when it sees your face. Yeah. And so ⁓ I choose to take the mask off when I'm doing like small microsecond videos ⁓ for reels and things like that. And then I put the mask back on. So yeah. Yeah, it's not a fun it doesn't smell good. You know, it smells like burning plastic. So it's you wanna have a mask on anyways. But it's a really good indicator because it smells so bad. If you could smell it, it's your the ventilation isn't good. Yeah. So even when I don't wear the mask, you're you can't smell it 'cause the vent is so good. But I wear the mask as cautionary. speaker-0: That's cool. I'm surprised like I've been to enough third world countries and smelt enough like burning garbage pits and stuff like that, doing a bunch of different work that I'm just like, man, I couldn't imagine smelling that the whole time. And I like, No, I'm sure she's got it properly ventilated. So well, awesome. So if people are looking for for highlighter to get you for ⁓ an art piece or even graphic design, where where can they find you or how can they reach you? speaker-1: Yeah, so ⁓ I'm on Instagram and the my handles at highlight H Y A L I T E underscore designs. I really I don't love business communication through DM. ⁓ and so if people want to contact me, they can email me at highlightdesigns at gmail dot com. ⁓ and you can find me on my website, highlightdesigns.com. And there's multiple forms there that people can fill fill out, whether that's rope art or wanting to work with me for design work. So, but everything's under highlight design, so you can find me there. But I will say if you try to contact me through Instagram, there's a good chance I'm not gonna see it and I'm not gonna respond. Yeah. So I'm just so busy that like professional stuff I do better with. Yeah. I check it like once every probably month or two. Yeah. Kind of thing. I'm like, ⁓ I need to get in here and then direct people where they need to go. speaker-0: And cause you have you have a pretty big following on social media. So you're I I know from my my wife's account that I'm like especially when a a post goes viral, I'm like, ⁓ I can't even keep track of the amount of like messages that comes in and followers and stuff. So I'm like, I I don't know how you keep track of it. Like it's just a it's like a bottomless pit of comments and messages and DMs and stuff. So ⁓ Yeah. So yeah, I feel you on that. So that's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on. I love learning about your art and everything else. I just think it's such a cool piece for people to be able to remember their climbs or just the places that they hiked or something for their home or or whatever. So ⁓ but I want to take a couple more minutes and just kind of get to know you a a little bit for everybody. ⁓ so first question I ask everybody all the time is what's your favorite national park? speaker-1: Gall. great question. So I'm only like in May on a probably like 45 minutes north of Yellowstone where I'm at. And like Yellowstone in the winter when most of the gates are closed is pretty spectacular. ⁓ like that's pretty amazing. There's almost nobody there if you're willing to do kind of the winter thing. So that's hard to beat for sure. ⁓ I've spent a lot of time in Mount Rainier as a climber. Yeah. And have climbed Mount Rainier. That one's hard to beat. ⁓ I think the thing one of the national parks I was by far the most surprised by of how much I enjoyed was Carlsbad Caverns. Really? Yeah, that was a good one. So it's hard to pick, honestly, because I've been to a few, but I've spent the most time in Rainier and Yellowstone. speaker-0: Okay, awesome. I Rini or I just did the Wonderland Trail like a two years ago with a buddy of mine. speaker-1: ⁓ nice. I've never done this Wonderland Trail. speaker-0: We got the permit and I was like, let's go for it, dude. And it was awesome. I didn't climb the mountain like you did, but I I went I walked around it. I did the lazy way I walked. speaker-1: No, I don't know. It's that's lazy. It's just different. ⁓ speaker-0: ⁓ all right, next question is ⁓ tent, hammock or cowboy camping? speaker-1: Oof. Tent. I'm not a big fan of bugs. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. No, no, I hear you. It's that that ⁓ some people like the walls just 'cause they feel like peop things are not gonna be around them, but I can't see the bugs and stuff like that. next question is what's the your favorite trail snack you've ever tried? Or that your what's your go to trail snack? speaker-1: ⁓ so most of my time in the mountains is ⁓ I spend a lot of time in the mountains in the winter. Yeah. And nerds gummy clusters, the best, doesn't matter if it's hot, doesn't matter if it's cold. They you can drop them on the ground, you can pick them up. They're best in all f all weather, all forms. And I want them all the time. Yes. Like that's half the problem is like when you're doing something hard, I'm gonna be like, Yeah, I definitely don't want to put try to eat this, like Mealy apple or this random protein bar, that doesn't sound good. Nerd gummy clusters, I always want them. speaker-0: They that's my number one answer whenever I ask that question. And ⁓ somebody somebody told me one time they were like, No, you need to do like certain types of nuts and stuff. So and I was like, ⁓ I I love nutrition, but I also love ⁓ nerd gummy clusters on the trail. So peanuts or nerd gummy clusters. I'll take sugar all day long. ⁓ all right, so kind of the flip side of that, what's your least favorite slash worst trail snack that you've ever tried? speaker-1: Right. ⁓ golf. ⁓ honestly, I really struggle with oatmeal. Like I can kind of sometimes eat oatmeal at home, but I feel like and I say it's not necessarily a trail snack, but it's the one thing that when we're like mountaineering or we're out like backpacking. Yeah. And like I wake up in the morning and it'd like it'll make me gag for sure. Not into it in all forms. People are like, ⁓ you gotta get like the cut steel cut oats and put apples and peanut butter. Nope. Doesn't make a difference. speaker-0: Yeah. That's my favorite s snack. So it was speaker-1: Okay, there you go. speaker-0: ⁓ all right, next question. It's a business question, but what's the biggest splurge you've ever made for your business? speaker-1: ⁓ well, my husband and I did just buy a house and one of the big parts of buying this house was it has a detached garage and it's gonna become the art studio. So buying a home with a detached garage was a big and ⁓ big part of it was so I could have a big art studio. Yeah, it's in a work in progress. So hopefully someday people will I'll be able to do like a beautiful art studio social media tour. speaker-0: Splurge. That's awesome. speaker-1: But we're not there yet. House lovable and then we'll get to the studio. So speaker-0: Yeah, I can't wait to see that. You need to wrap all the walls in rope. Just do one massive art piece. speaker-1: That's kind of the plan right now. Totally like a big part of my business has is people donating their rope to me so it doesn't go in the trash. And I have so much rope now that it's like it's almost gonna become an art piece in itself of just having rope that's stored in the studio. So I'm I'm so excited to get there. speaker-0: Crazy. That's awesome. ⁓ all right. ⁓ next question is if you could collab with any brand or anybody, who would it be and why? speaker-1: Yeah, I I feel like so ⁓ don't know in the climbing world there is a amazing nonprofit called the Access Fund. And they do ⁓ t shirts that benefit that they can get, you know, money obviously, and then work with different companies and land and helping keep public spaces open for climbers and trails open. And ⁓ they do kind of an annual t shirt. art thing every year and I'd love to be able to design something for the Access Fund to help them get some money. So that's cool. I'd love to work with ⁓ an awesome nonprofit to hopefully help keep spaces open for people to get outside and enjoy wild spaces. So speaker-0: That's great. It's un unselfish right there. That's cool. Yeah, yeah. No, that's good. Well, I I again, I really appreciate you being on and taking the time. And I for everybody who's listening, I know it was a little different kind of episode, but I think in the outdoor space there's so many different different facets of running a business, whether it's a product or a service, in your case creating art and everything else, that people can have those memories for the things that they did in the outdoors because speaker-1: Trying to be speaker-0: I have so many times I go on a trip and I have like shoes on my back wall here that I I don't want to throw away. One, it looks cool for the backdrop, but I also don't want to throw away because I'm like, ⁓ I remember the miles I put on this. Yeah. These shoes. Or I have a trekking pole that I'm like, they're broken. I keep fixing them because I'm like, ⁓ I remember how it got me through this and and everything else. So I think it's the same thing with the rope and stuff. So now that I'm into climbing just a little bit, and ⁓ I'm gonna send your info to a friend of mine who just open a a big climbing gym ⁓ about an hour away. ⁓ cool. And my daughter's actually living with them while while she's in school. ⁓ and so I'm gonna send it to him. Hopefully he'll get something from you and get it put in in the gym and stuff. But once I have enough rope of memories, I'll probably get it before then, but once I have some some rope and some memories, I I'm gonna ⁓ definitely reach out to having you make me something probably half dome looking because totally My daughter and I did half dome before and then we've hiked every time we're in Yosemite. That's our favorite ⁓ yeah favorite part of Dome. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, totally. The that's amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. And and ⁓ like you're saying, like if people wanna do a rope piece and include their own ropes, great. They don't have to have their own ropes, whatever. I've done literally everything you can imagine for the most part. So ⁓ but yeah, thank you so much for having me and letting me kind of share the love of climbing rope art. speaker-0: No, thank you. And enjoy the new studio. And I can't wait to see it, see it. And everybody, thank you again for listening. And I will see you on the next episode. Thank you so much, Katie. speaker-1: Yeah, thank you.