We all love a good specialty item that features our savvy and beauty as Black women. And for Addie Rawr, a Virginia-based graphic designer, and entrepreneur, this is the centerpiece of what’s behind her products landing placement with Target. Her line of journals, stationary and artwork include illustrations that bring to life that favorite Fashion Nova babe, rich auntie, or brunch bestie in your life, and provides an outlet for you to express congrats, love, or seasonal greetings in a way that is fresh and authentic.
Rawr got her start while completing her degree at Virginia Commonwealth University, serving as a leader in the creation of Art & Ambition Studios (Community for Black Artists & Designers) and cultivating her skills of creating unique, relatable depictions for her 20-something peers. Since 2015, she's put in the work to ensure that her brand gets the exposure and support it needs to thrive.
We talked more with her about building her business, the three keys to getting noticed by a powerhouse like Target, and why representation of today's Black women millennials and Gen Zers matter in all aspects of gifting:
xoNecole: Your line of journals are available in Target, which is huge for a small business. How did it all come about?
That was a big partnership. It's something that I honestly had been wanting and hoping for. I have [had] a vision board for my business for years now, but I honestly did not expect it to happen so soon. Around this time last year, Target reached out to me. I think that lets me know that I'm doing the right thing, for a buyer to reach out to me to be a partner. The process itself was very tedious. It's a lot of work and training that goes into it.
Target openly accepted all the products that I pitched to them, without changing my designs or work. All my products have Black women in them. For Target to openly accept without trying to make me tone them down or anything was a very big deal.
Courtesy of Addie Rawr
xoN: Why stationary and specialty goods?
I'm a gift-giving person. I'm that person who will buy a card for anything. You got a promotion? I'm buying you a card. If you passed a test, I'm buying you a card. That's one of my things that I do for friends and family. The first product I launched in 2015, my Christmas cards, came from me looking for them. I wanted to give them out to my boyfriend at the time and to my friends, and I couldn't find any that represented me at that time. [I was] a 25-year-old Black woman, and I couldn't find anything that represented that. There was just no Black representation of a young, modern-day Black woman. They were older and mostly the kind of images where it [looked like] a white woman but they just made it a Black woman.
I'm an artist, so I can draw my own designs of what I want to see on a card. I had experience already with card-making and layout designs, so I really just practiced and tested them out. My first Christmas cards I created, I printed at Office Depot, so that's how it started. It all just came from looking for things that represented me.
xoN: From your experience, what were three things you would say were important in building a successful brand that can get the attention of partners or retailers?
Stay true to yourself.One thing that I've been committed to since the start of creating my company is staying true to what I like and what I'd like to see in the world. The meaning of that is it's extremely hard for any type of designer, whether it's a product designer or an illustrator, to fall into a trap. You start to feel like, well, this is what's popular right now so let me create this type of art. You start to change up your whole style to fit the trend. Don't do that.
When you do, you don't stay consistent. So now you have 10 years of work in your business, and every single year is different--your style is different, your product is different. For me, every year, it's been consistent. That's helped my brand to continue to be successful and pick up partnerships.
Don't be afraid to ask for help. I don't mind asking for suggestions or advice. I reach out to others who have companies to chat with them, not necessarily to pick their brains but letting them know, 'Hey this is what's going on with my company right now. You have experience. Do you have any advice for me?' There are some people that are open to helping you out, open to answering questions to lead you in the right direction.
Be deliberate about becoming part of the community. I'm part of at least five communities, some are free and some are paid memberships. They allow me to network and meet people in different industries outside of what I do. That way, I can expand my audience and I can connect with people from the banking and printing industries [for example]. I have a certification from eCornell and they have an alumni group that I'm in. It's a lot of women who just have the same certification and they're from all different backgrounds. LinkedIn also has groups, and I'm in my college alumni group there, which is helpful.
For the [memberships] that I pay for, I found them through grant [opportunities]. Normally, if you don't get accepted for grant funding, [there's] a community you can join where you can learn more about business, get a mentor, or get an accountability partner, so the next time another grant comes around, you'll be more prepared to apply for that grant. I'm part of Verizon's community branch off of their grant program, and IFundWomen is another one, which has a branch called IFundWomen of Color. You have to research, and I have a page on my website that lists these [resources.]
For more of Addie, follow her on Instagram @addierawr.
Featured image courtesy of Addie Rawr
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak