On today’s episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast we’re talking about surface design and product design with my guest Hollei Hayes.

Hollei is the owner of Hollei Anne Design Co. After honing her craft for over ten years in the design industry, she made the leap from working in Fortune 500 corporations collaborating with esteemed brands such as Toys R Us and Skip Hop. Now, she’s fully immersed in her passion as a Surface and Product designer and has had her art seen in big box retailers like Target, TJ Maxx, Hallmark and more!

Today, she’s fortunate to own a creative studio where she dedicates her efforts to providing trending art and design to elevate product collections and brand identities for entrepreneurial women in retail for the homegoods, stationery, gift and textile industries.

Hollei shows off some of the products she designed for sale at Target.

While working as a graphic designer at The Christmas Tree Shops, Hollei discovered the world of surface pattern design (she sat across from the surface pattern design team). A friend on that team encouraged her to pivot her career to pursue this new avenue.

Hollei worked for Horizon Group, a manufacturing company that pitches product concepts to retailers. In that role, she got experience designing products for Target’s Bullseye Section – the dollar section at the front of the store. This required keeping multiple factors in mind at once including creating inexpensive, but highly tempting, products and designs.

Another of Hollei’s collections at Target.

Hollei talks about some of the fears she faced when leaving her corporate job to start her own business. She recommends the Graphic Artist Guild Handbook as a great tool to help with pricing your services correctly.

Hollei also emphasizes the importance of balancing personal expression with commercial appeal. She shares her experience with a mother’s day card design that her art licensing agent deemed unsuitable for commercial use, but which she felt was meaningful.

And, of course, I ask Hollei to recommend great stuff she’s loving right now. Hollei recommends:

• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Adobe Fresco
• Steel Yarn Needles and Clover 2.5 inch pom pom maker

Keep up with Hollei on her website and on Instagram.