From Fuzzco to Pretend Store, Helen Rice is taking a non-traditional approach to design and defining brand stories.
From launching a creative agency to a real estate brand, Helen Rice isn’t afraid to try something new. In 2005, Helen and her husband Josh Nissenboim launched Fuzzco. From their bi-coastal offices in Charleston and Portland, Helen and her team have done branding, photography, illustration, and animation for companies like MailChimp and Google all while launching their own side projects with the same curious point of view and distinct design sense.
Pretend Store is their pop-up-experiment-turned-ecommerce shop where they sell wildly creative and collaborative products, designed in-house. Serious Buildings is a design-driven real estate investment company where Helen and her husband restore historic buildings like Fuzzco’s 9th Charleston office.
On this episode, Helen talks about creating strong brand identity systems (13:08), using design templates (16:55), and building trust through thoughtful design (10:30). Helen and Stephan discuss minimalism (18:05) and modern graphic design challenges (12:08). She shares how she balances Pretend Store as a business and passion project (39:25), how Serious Buildings began (24:40), and lastly, how she’s learning to pursue all her interests while setting boundaries (43:45).
Links and images from this post are on the Lumi Blog.