Shar Biggers
Shar Biggers
Brand + Web Designer / Founder & Creative Director of Provoke
New York, NY
www.weareprovoke.com
instagram @weareprovoke
WHAT DO YOU DO?
“I’m the founder and creative director of a brand design studio called Provoke Design. ”
We’re a go big or go home kind of design studio, headquartered in NYC, but remotely spread across the globe. What’s interesting about us is that we help the small guys compete with the big guys, at a conjointly advanced and sophisticated level. We do this by using our growing network of world-class creatives that primarily work independently, but collaborate with us on a project-to-project basis. These are usually creatives that are obsessed with or inspired by our cause and partner to balance the scales in business.
WHAT STEPS DID YOU TAKE TO GET TO WHERE YOU ARE NOW?
It feels like I took as many steps as there is sand on a seashore. To put that into perspective, I actually began as a doctoral student and intern in neuroscience studying the causes of cancer. Prior to the program officially kicking off, I realized that it just wasn’t for me and that I was doing it because it appeared honorable to myself and my loved ones. The truth was that I was creative and at that time being creative in the south just emitted “starving artist”. I hadn’t quite put two and two together yet, but I knew medical science wasn’t for me and that in my heart I desired to become an entrepreneur. I was so young and green that I had no idea how one became an entrepreneur, but since childhood, higher education had been fastened onto me. Therefore, I soon began to look for MBA programs that had a focus on entrepreneurship and management. Once I found a program that fit, I entered into it almost immediately.
While I was completing my MBA, the itch to be creative just wouldn’t leave and I found myself applying for digital analyst roles in advertising. That was the beginning of my creative career. While working in marketing and advertising, I found my way to the graphic design department and realized that in order to be taken seriously, I’d have to return to school—again! I ended up attending The Portfolio Center of Design, in Atlanta GA. It was one of the best decisions of my life. I ate, slept, and worked there constantly as I got closer to graduation. Even buying a cot to sleep on at school. My goal was to become one of the best at my craft. I felt I had to work harder than my peers because of my background and to prove that taking the creative route didn’t mean failure. Fast forward, and I’ve attained years of experience working with Fortune 500's and helping over 10 million Americans say "I'm with her" for Hillary Clinton. During those years I developed a passion for underserved businesses that did not have access to talented designers like myself and I launched Provoke to change that.
How do you stand out in your field?
I’m going to use an analogy. It might be a tad bit cheesy, but it’s the best way I can explain it.
I treat every project that comes through my hands as a personal endeavor. From the beginning, I have to see it that way in order to ensure it’s successful. When something is a personal project, in your eyes it’s almost like your baby. And when you have a child and you’ve been blessed with resources, you won’t leave them unkempt. You provide them with the best you’ve got! You’ll research everything to the high heavens, aim to provide them with the best education, the best clothes, the most healthy environments, and you’ll plan to send them off with the most successful future possible. You’ll also have a killer sixth sense about everything they do because there’s this parent-child bond thing that’s happening. Well, this is how I treat a branding project. Together, the client and I co-parent the project into completion and we do it with all our strength. This tends to create some pretty cool work if I say so myself.
Our clients are typically (but not exclusively) bootstrapped ambitious brands, women-led companies, and businesses owned by people of color. We see this problem all too often where these groups don't have the means of entry necessary to hire the best and brightest in the field and truly compete in their respective markets. Their competitors are usually dominating, having spent upwards of 300k+ on their brand identity, product design, digital assets, and marketing collateral. Too frequently, these smaller organizations are entering the market with substandard or mediocre brand design, if any at all. There are numerous reasons for this, most of it is due to a lack of financial resources and miseducation about properly architecting a brand. It is this audience we center our focus on—the ambitious ones that desire to compete at a high level but don't have high-level connections or investments. Our job is to help them build a brand the world will love, an admired brand. One that feels like a million dollars.
Some of our offers include brand strategy, visual identity design, packaging, and web design + development.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON RIGHT NOW?
I’m currently working on wrapping up some branding projects, a few of them include a body care line, a tech company, and two event planning/production companies. We are also kicking off some projects as well for a fashion line, a magazine, a haircare line, and much more.
WHAT'S YOUR STYLE/PERSPECTIVE/TASTE? DO YOU HAVE A PROJECT THAT REPRESENTS THIS?
Very early in my design career, I learned from my school’s design director, Hank Richardson, that your style at that moment should always be whatever the client needs. That was the best advice I’ve received in my design career. Illustrators should have styles, designers should cleverly yet simply produce good design. Dieter Rams' list of 10 timeless principles of good design is something I really live by. A few of those principles include:
Good design is innovative.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Note, these rules do not apply if you become famous as the moon for your style and people pay you to have it, I.E. Stefan Sagmeister, Jessica Hisch, or James Victore. However, this is a very rare event for a designer.
WE ARE ALL SLASHIES WITH MULTIPLE SKILLS, WHICH ONE DO YOU WISH YOU COULD DO MORE OFTEN?
Honestly, I LOVE branding and I get to wake up and do it from start-to-finish every day. I wouldn’t change that at all! But I do wish I got to work more on ideation. I'd especially love to help entrepreneurs brainstorm, create and launch new business concepts when they feel stuck and out of fresh ideas. This is a major passion of mine. I get to do it a little, but definitely not as much as I’d like. Lastly, I love podcasting and writing books. I wish I had more time to focus on that.
WHAT IS FRUSTRATING YOU RIGHT NOW?
Focusing on new business development and marketing is always something that falls to the bottom of the to-do list, but our goal is to make the work strong enough to be what I call a "Cheesecake Factory". It’s a brand that never marketed itself, yet excelled strictly word-of-mouth based on excellence in service.
IF YOU COULD HIRE SOMEONE FOR $20/HR, WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE THEM DO TO MAKE YOUR DAY EASIER?
It’s a toss-up between admin work, a healthy chef, and a personal trainer, ha!
LET'S BRING OUT THE TIME MACHINE. WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU COULD HAVE TOLD YOURSELF, WHEN, AND WHY?
I’d first go back to my teenage years and tell myself to learn now how to let go of stress and worry, as well as how to value self-care. It’s very hard to learn those values later in life.
IF YOU COULD TALK TO AN EXPERT TO GAIN MORE INSIGHT ON SOMETHING, WHAT WOULD IT BE ABOUT?
I don’t think there is enough white space to handle all the different professionals I’d chat with, ha! I’m one who has a healthy respect for specialization and learning from others. For me, they’d range between mental health, spiritual health, physical health experts, as well as different business professionals across many different topics. I don’t know that one is more important than the other for me, I’m constantly thinking about these things and how to create those conversations.
WHAT KIND OF OPPORTUNITIES/PROJECTS ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
Primarily branding projects. We’re industry agnostic, so we’re open to all types of clientele, as long as it's predominately B2C focused. We look for clients that need strategy, copywriting, visual identity system, packaging, web, and social. The full shebang! We’re a start-to-finish kind of company. However, we do take on smaller projects.
DESCRIBE YOUR IDEAL JOB/CLIENT/COLLABORATION.
Client type is very important to us. We usually go for clients that are open + coachable and a pleasure to work with, that desire to execute their brands in a better way, and are time efficient. There is nothing greater than a client that understands the value of what they’re receiving, is respectful of agreements and of everyone in the room. This is the type of client that is like heaven for us.
For collaborations and job inquiries, which we have quite a bit of, we look for creatives that are great with time management, that stay on top of deadlines, have a high brow aesthetic, and are highly skilled with formal training. Furthermore are humble and respectful, curious, listens to understand, is flexible, a self-starter, and disciplined. We do our best to provide this in return as well to clients, collaborators, and employees. This works both ways.
HOW SHOULD SOMEONE APPROACH YOU ABOUT WORKING TOGETHER?
Submit a project brief or intro to your project/idea with your timeline and scope to hello@weareprovoke.com.
HOW DO YOU STAY CREATIVE?
Book reading and staying inspired by the world around me, always.
This member profile was originally published in February 2021.