The hardest brief
is a blank page.

Anyone can refine what already exists. Building something from nothing — the name, the brand, the strategy, the visual world, the market presence — that takes a different kind of thinking entirely.

These are businesses that started as an idea and became something real. Every decision made deliberately. Every element connected. Nothing random.

This is the work I'm most proud of.

Case Study: Tiramisu Paperie
Brand Identity, PackCaseaging, Catalog, Wholesale Strategy and Market Presence

THE ORIGIN

When Lisa DiVito lost her mother to cancer, the cards that arrived felt like noise. Polished. Distant. Patronizing. Cards that said you'll be okay to someone who needed to hear I see you.

So she made her own.

After 20+ years as an art director and creative director, Lisa took everything she knew about brand building and turned her grief into a company. Tiramisu Paperie — Italian for a little pick me up — was built on a single belief: that people deserve to be seen in their pain, not managed through it. Authentic, real, occasionally snarky cards for people who were done with the fluff.

That gap in the market wasn't a hypothesis. It was lived experience.

THE BRAND

The name drove everything. Tiramisu — the dessert — became the entire visual identity. Lisa pulled the brand palette directly from the dessert itself: the deep espresso of the coffee, the warm ivory of the ladyfingers, the cream of the mascarpone, the dusty brown of the cocoa. Warm. Welcoming. Specific.

A brand guideline was built and never broken. Not once. Every catalog, every booth at market, every piece of packaging, every email — all of it lived inside the same visual world. Lisa even dressed in the brand colors at shows and pop-ups. The brand wasn't just something she sold. It was something she inhabited.

THE BUILD

Lisa designed and built everything herself:
• Logo and full brand identity
• Packaging system
• Catalog after catalog
• Website
• Trade show booth environments
• Marketing collateral and follow-up campaigns

No outside agency. No brand drift. Just 20+ years of expertise applied to something deeply personal.

THE STRATEGY

Getting into stores required the same discipline as building the brand. Lisa researched gift shops, stationery boutiques, and card retailers for hours and days before her first trade show. She sent cold emails. She mailed printed invitations — because she still believes in the power of print. She hired sales reps. At peak she had 45+ reps working on her behalf across the country.

At her very first trade show, she landed Paper Source — a national retailer with hundreds of locations. It wasn't luck. It was preparation meeting a brand that was impossible to ignore.

Follow-up was non-negotiable. After every show, after every order — emails and postcards went out consistently to keep reorders flowing.

THE RESULT

2,000+ retail locations nationwide. Six figures in two years. $500,000 in gross sales in 2019. Built from scratch. Funded by no one but herself.

THE LESSON

"I knew my audience. I knew their pain points and their love affair with paper and letter writing. I knew they hoarded stationery and had a bit of a snarky personality. I never once wavered."

That's it. That's the whole lesson. Know exactly who you're talking to and never leave them behind.