Creating Things is Hard: Launching a New Branding Agency in Asheville

Creating things is hard.

Take the simple act of writing. We’ve all been there—staring at a blank screen with a single black vertical cursor just blinking like some annoying kid brother trying to get your attention. You know you want (or probably need) to write something and you want it (but probably don’t need it) to be profound. 

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The idea was there—is there—if you could just dig it out and run with it. Get in the flow. It’s something brilliant just out of reach. But for now you’re stuck staring at a blank white screen with that blinking cursor rhythmically pecking at you like some annoying bird. Doubt creeps in. Anxiety breaks the surface like the eyes of a hunting crocodile. All the while that cursor just ticks the seconds away in deafening silence. 

The truth is, while not always that dramatic (I know. I went a little overboard with the whole crocodile thing), the process of creating something new isn’t different when you’re “good at it” or when you do it every day. You still have that blinking cursor, that blank canvas, that empty square of screen that’s supposed to be filled with brilliance and color. But it’s not—because creating things is hard.

So why in the hell would we choose to create things for a living? On top of that, what insanity would drive us to create—from scratch—a company almost completely dependent on creating new things every day? What foolish hubris has led us to leave careers with nice salaries, health insurance, free coffee (jeez coffee has gotten expensive)—all the trappings of modern corporate life—to stare at the metaphorical blinking cursor that is a new branding and marketing agency? I mean, we could have been accountants instead.*

So why do it?

Well, the truth is, I love a blank page. There are no guides or guard rails to a blank page. It’s all opportunity. Yeah, the crocodile is still looming (there he is again). The cursor is still ticking or pecking or whatever tortured metaphor I want to give it. It’s all still there but the possibility is also there. It’s endless and you’re completely free. It’s not even about coloring outside of the lines. There are no lines. Yeah, you have to make your own but you also get to make your own.

So, when in the Spring of 2025, life's events and opportunities opened a window for us to jump through and start our own branding and marketing agency, we jumped. We’ve both had a lot of freedom to create in our careers but the lines have always been there. Those lines can be expected when you’re working in-house for major brands and large organizations but the page was never really blank.

Creating Brand Name Creative was our way of opening up our own blank page—with all of the excitement and anxiety that brings. After decades of working on the inside, we wanted to create an agency that understands what it’s like in there. What it’s like when the CEO’s assistant emails you and tells you the boss’s spouse (who “has an eye for these things”) looked over your beautiful publication and thinks it needs less white space and more Palatino. 

...Trust us, we’ve been there. 

We know what it’s like when the agency the company hired for twice your annual salary keeps insisting on concepts that might look great in their portfolio but serve no practical purpose in the realities of your business or your customers.

...We’ve been there too. 

We’ve been through rapid growth, budget cuts, corporate mergers and corporate layoffs. We’ve worked in marketing departments at rapidly growing start ups and august universities. We’ve stared at that blinking cursor or that blank white page and wished it was even blanker. 

So here we are.

We're launching a new branding agency in Asheville to build brands and share our creativity with others. And, yeah, creating things is still hard. Starting a new business is hard. Writing about our work is hard. But it’s also really fun, and fulfilling, and scary and exciting. We’re here for all of it and we hope you are too. 

So call us if you need someone else to stare at that blank page for you for a while and, if all your pages are already full, please tell other people we’re here. Follow us on social, share our name with your friends, read our ramblings about cursors and crocodiles and consider passing them along. We just want to create cool brands. Thanks for helping us do that.

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*Actually, that’s not true. We could not have been accountants and have been recently reminded of that fact. Because, yeah, business accounting is also hard.