farewell dm designs & hello….

It is with great pleasure that I officially announce the retirement of dm designs… and proudly introduce the company’s new identity as limefish studio! 

I am thrilled to be moving forward with all limefish branding from here on out. All the great projects, custom artwork, and inspiration will remain the same…. the name has just been refreshed to better reflect the overall style and long-term goals of the company.

This decision may confuse some of you, but rest assured, I have given it much careful consideration. In fact, the brainstorming of limefish studio began well over a year ago! Sadly, dm designs was created slightly more out of convenience than out of a passion for the branding. I believe the original logo development was something I worked on during college, and then as my independent art sales began to rise, my sales in boutiques began, and the desire for a blog arose, I realized I needed a brand. The look and feel of dm designs changed slightly over time and I became increasingly more pleased with how things were coming together, but I honestly never loved it. I was so busy working on projects for clients however, that I could not find the time for myself. It was easier to continue as it was. Also, over time, I battled with the actual word “designs” because my portfolio and services were rapidly epanding and the word seemed restricting. I tried to make adjustments by adding other tag words along the bottom, but truthfully was bothered by the clutter. I disliked the feeling of being half of what I really wanted to be.

Also, I began thinking about a lot of my ultimate goals for the future. I wanted to have my artwork featured in boutiques, and I’ve happily achieved that. Now, at some point down the road (even if it’s 30 years from now) I want to have my own storefront. Ideally, it would be a boutique and studio, where I can not only take custom orders and sell current artwork, but can also have my own studio space or even a shared studio space to offer art lessons and classes. Big dreams, I know! 🙂 But…. with all that said, the more I thought about it, the more I knew that it would never be called dm something…. It would definitely be limefish. 

I needed a name that was more whimsical and memorable. While I won’t share the full details of my personal attachment to the name, I definitely think limefish reflects the fun nature of the artwork I create. It’s slightly random, I know, but so am I. It has the childlike qualities that reflect the nurseries I paint, the baby shower gifts I do, and my new role as an art teacher. I feel it also has the clean sophisticated lines and subtle interest that I utilize in the graphic design work. Overall, I believe it’s more catchy (… like a fish, haha, forgive the cheesiness, I’ve been staring at a computer too much lately).

Like I said, I’ve been stewing over this for quite some time, but the mountain of legwork behind switching everything over was certainly daunting. What finally gave me the giant push? Well, I’ve been wanting my own website (yes, a real site in addition to this lovely blog I love so much).  I started searching…. and searching…. and searching.  And, believe it or not, every single (dot)com combination I could think of that was close to dm designs, dani marie, dani marie designs, dani marie, etc. were all taken. THEN – the worst part – I googled those words as well.

I truly wish I had done this search a long time ago before ever moving forward with dm designs. Silly, silly me for not. A few weeks ago, when I googled those combination of words above, I discovered that there were several companies with similar names and another actual dm designs in California. Yea, it’s annoying, and I could have let it slide…. but, the worst part – this company had ridiculously terrible reviews written about it. Everything from being lazy to bad designs to a client taking them to court! YIKES. Then, to make matters worse, I looked at google images. It was exciting to see a lot of my artwork pop up immediately. It was NOT exciting to see an insane amount of naked women pop up! What the!?!?!  I was shocked and beyond frustrated. I did not want my company being associated with any of that nonsense. THIS was the big push forward I needed.

I made a list (a very long list) of all the things I needed to do including buying limefishstudio.com! 🙂 YAY! Be on the lookout for me new website soon! There were a zillion other places I had to think about too…. including this blog, facebok, etsy, twitter, pinterest, and so on. Almost all sites are wonderful in the fact that I can simply update my name and photo.

Facebook, unfortunately, is the only case where you cannot change the actual name of your page (that option is only available if fewer than 100 people like your page) So….. I have to completely start over from scratch, but it’s worth it. And I’m hoping all your current 800+ lovely fans of dm designs will make the transition with me and head over to LIKE limefish studio…. right? pretty please?