About 989

989 Design is one of Mid-Michigan’s leading graphic design and marketing communications studios. We are in the business of taking your ideas and bringing them to life. We are a two-person studio (and growing) with about 40 years of experience in design and advertising between the two of us.

Hi…I’m Shawn MacDonald, your tour director on this brief history of 989 Design. The studio traces its roots back to Denver, Colorado where I was working as a studio artist for a big ad agency. I worked with a lot of really talented and interesting people on a wide variety of projects for some of the biggest companies in the country. Coors Brewing, Coca-Cola and many more. I left the agency and started my own freelance business, Shawn MacDonald Creative. I made some decent connections in Denver and was lucky enough to count Converse and Hot Pockets among my freelance clients. In addition, I continued to work with Coors and other agency clients as a subcontractor. 

My studio was a small room on the back of my home. I could see the mountains and watch the sunset, both of which are great for inspiration, but in the summer months the west-facing studio was unbearably hot. It was like working in a sauna. I was doing pretty well and had the business growing nicely when I decided that I wanted to move back home to Michigan to be closer to family. In August of 2004 I packed up my house and my dogs and we drove to Bay City, Michigan—the town I grew up in.

For a couple of years I worked out of one of the extra bedrooms in my house, but in summer of 2007 I was able to find a great studio space just over a half-mile from the house. The studio is located at 701 Midland Street—right in the heart of Bay City’s entertainment district. The neighborhood is home to a number of restaurants and bars and is always a hub of activity, especially in the summer when some of the establishments put decks out front.

The studio itself is an old bank building built in the late 1800s—our storage closet is a walk-in vault. The studio features loft-like ductwork, a great Italian marble mosaic floor, etched glass, and lots of sunshine. We also have a ping-pong table, lots of books and magazines, and a few very healthy plants. 

In mid-2008, I was joined at the studio by Laurie Russell, a very talented artist and designer. Like me, Laurie’s background was in working for agencies on a number of large international and regional accounts. It’s been a real benefit to the studio to have Laurie here because it gives us the chance to reach out to new potential clients and bring on more work than I could handle by myself.

We also work with a number of freelance designers and developers as our workload dictates. As a small studio, it sometimes makes more sense for us to work with experts rather than try to do it ourselves. For example, we design web pages, but we do not build them. We have a few people who build these amazing sites, so we develop the look and the way the site will operate and leave it to the experts to put it all together.

Being a small studio gives us a lot of advantages that you don’t have with big agencies because we don’t have the overhead of a big agency. You get the highest quality work available with out the hidden costs of hiring an agency. We aren’t going to nickel-and-dime you. When we give you a price, that’s the price you will pay. And we’re not happy with a job until you are. 

One of my proudest accomplishments is that I still have some of the same clients I first landed almost ten years ago. Even though we are located in Michigan, we still work with clients in Denver and thanks to the internet, we can work with clients anywhere in the world. We haven’t pursued much work outside of the state, but we are focusing on growing our out-of-state business. 

It’s a tricky business, this business of bringing life to people’s ideas. And it’s a business we take very seriously at 989 Design. Our mission is to take your ideas and communicate them, striking a balance between aesthetics and effectiveness.

If you have a project coming up and you think we might be a good fit, please drop by the studio or give us a call at 989.895.3560. If you don’t have a project coming up, please feel free to stop by and say hello anyway. It’s always nice to have company.