Behind the work. Behind the awards. Behind the face of every creative professional is a career made up of stories. Our stories are what we carry along on life’s journey. And whether it’s a funny anecdote, a parable with a lesson or merely gossip, other people are usually all ears for an engaging tale.

Beginning in this issue, I’ll be exploring “short stories.” As hostess/emcee/ringmaster, I will kick off the series myself by sharing a few tales from my more than two decades at Sayles Graphic Design. In the 24 years I have co-owned the business, I’ve filed two dozen corporate tax returns and nearly 100 quarterly reports. I have presided over more than 3500 staff meetings and signed my name thousands of times to checks, contracts, letters and—back in the old days—those pink phone message slips. I’ve written three books, survived an IRS audit, taken two clients to small-claims court, fired a friend, slept with my business partner and lived to tell about it (see “Who Would’ve Thought: An Honest Reflection on 20 Years of Life [and Love] in Graphic Design,” November/December 2005 STEP). I may not have seen it all yet, but I sure as hell have seen a lot of it! Trying to decide what stories to reveal can be a tough call. There are dramas, comedies, sad tales and a few incidents that still make me mad when I revisit them. I’ve decided to pick landmark events—one from each decade—to share.

In the 1980s my partner John and I were a startup, so I am including the story of “how we met.” The following decade the Great Flood of 1993 knocked out the water supply of our entire city for 11 days and threatened our very existence. In 2001 it was 9/11, which may be today’s equivalent of “Where were you when John Kennedy was shot?”

There are a lot more where these came from, as you can imagine. Fortunately I have a space limit here. And when I’m done, it’s your turn.

1985: THE WAY WE STARTED WAS A CRIME
It’s funny how every move we make can have an amazing impact on our lives. Such is how the story of Sayles Graphic Design begins. I was in my mid-20s, perfectly happy in a career as an administrator at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. I was living in an apartment in a funky part of town, and my car had been broken into.

I found an enclosed garage a couple of blocks away with parking spaces for rent. The $50 a month it cost to house my Volvo seemed worth it. There was a photography studio adjacent to the garage, and a graphic designer was subletting one of the small offices in the studio. I noticed the designer and his eclectic mix of furniture, and in a short time I developed a bona fide crush on him. Within two months, John Sayles was not only my boyfriend but also my business partner; we had decided to start our own graphic design firm.

John and I found a small loft downtown, demolished the interior ourselves to save money and rebuilt the space from bare walls. I put a desk on my credit card and brought in the phone from the spare bedroom in my apartment. John hauled in his art table. We were in business. Within weeks, we had our first clients: I used my higher education contacts to land jobs designing materials for college fraternities and sororities. Before our first 90 days in business was up, I broke my arm—my right arm, and I am right-handed. Typing on an electric typewriter (this was B.C.—before computers) using only my left hand was a challenge, but nothing like putting on bra and makeup in the morning. But I—and our fledgling business—persevered. On June 1, 2009, Sayles Graphic Design will celebrate 24 years. And if I hadn’t had my car broken into all those years ago, who knows what direction my life would have taken?

1993: A FLOOD OF EMOTIONS
The Great Flood of 1993 was the costliest, most devastating flood in U.S. history, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Floodwaters covered as many as 23 million acres of land in the Upper Midwest for weeks. Iowa found itself in the center of the catastrophe, and Des Moines was one of hardest-hit communities. Still, John and I felt lucky: Our home and our business were intact. But we were among the quarter million Des Moines residents left without water for 11 days.

The flood struck on a Sunday, and even though there was no water or electricity (power was out for the first 36 hours), we called our staff at home and told them to report to work on Monday. During the first days it felt like camping. We brown-bagged lunches of fruit and canned tuna (no restaurants were open). We flushed the toilet with water brought to work by the one staffer who lived outside city limits. We hauled drinking water from National Guard water tanks set up in school and church parking lots.

It was like living in a war zone. News helicopters constantly buzzed overhead. Most of our local clients put their projects on “temporary hold.” Many businesses were closed anyway; it had become illegal to occupy an office building above the ground floor—no running water meant sprinkler systems weren’t functioning. Fortunately we had a street-level location, so we were exempt from mandatory evacuation (although we did keep the lights off in order to avoid possible confrontations). Meanwhile our out-of-state clients saw Des Moines featured day after day in the news and called to offer encouragement and—of course—to verify that their jobs were still on schedule. One genuinely thoughtful client in California overnighted us a case of Evian, which we sipped from champagne glasses!

Through it all, we didn’t miss a single deadline. But even after running water was restored, we faced challenges. Water out of the faucet wasn’t potable for several weeks and had to be boiled. And several of our most trusted suppliers—printers, packaging and corrugated companies—had been flooded out and were unable to resume operations for a month or more. But we made it. And our company was stronger for it.

2001: ART FIGHTS BACK
On Sept. 11, 2001, the staff of Sayles Graphic Design joined all Americans in mourning something lost. The day of the attacks, my partner John dealt with his emotions by designing a poster— he thought maybe it could help promote the issuance of war bonds. But as his ideas flowed onto paper, the inspiration to use art for a much larger purpose flowed out as well.

Creating patriotic images allowed John and our staff to express grief, outrage and pride. So the idea of Art Fights Back—a patriotic art exhibition to raise money for relief efforts—was born. We knew we couldn’t go it alone, so we started making phone calls. We dialed up fellow creative professionals. We contacted printers. We called paper companies. We got in touch with the media. The response we got was overwhelming.

Everyone, it seemed, was looking for a way to do something—anything—that might allow them to make a difference. We couldn’t dig at Ground Zero or personally comfort a child whose parent was being sent to war, but we could give of our talents to tell the world how much America, and everything it stands for, matters to us. The resulting exhibition and benefit came together in under 90 days. Thirty patriotic posters were displayed, and many were auctioned off to benefit a fund for families of Iowa soldiers. The exhibit debuted Dec. 7, 2001, the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor … the only date our chosen venue, the lobby of Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, was available. Realizing the coincidence, we were overcome with emotion. Art Fights Back won Best of Show in our local Addy competition, and the exhibition has been displayed at local patriotic events every year since 2001.

Your Turn:
We invite you to share your own short stories. How did you get your start in the design business? What interesting people have you met along the way? What have you learned about, laughed at or loved most? Please share engaging stories related to your career … try to stay under 600 words for each tale you tell. Be sure to send a photo that brings the individual story to life, too—after all, we’re visual people! Send your stories to sheree@saylesdesign.com. And don’t feel your story has to be monumental; what matters is it’s yours.