“Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.”
– Rumi

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have made numerous sacrifices. Our community has been greatly impacted — we’ve lost loved ones, many businesses struggled to stay afloat, and each and every one of us grappled with the concept of the “new normal”.

Amidst these challenges, Sagetopia was given the opportunity to spread a message of hope and new growth to encourage our community members. Many people pass by the Town of Leesburg-owned building as they walk to and from downtown Leesburg near the Liberty Parking Lot. We saw the potential to transform the blank walls into a breath of joy and life!

Many passersby have expressed encouragement and delight in the new mural! Watch the progression of our mural below:

Created and donated by: Sagetopia
Art Directors: Connor McDonald / Sung Hee Kim 
Lead Illustrator: Melissa Swanchara
Project Managers: Molly Hwang / Kyle Iamsuri
Painters: Haley Watson / Ruth Han 
Materials donated by: Friends of Leesburg Public Arts

Special thanks to Kim Kim and the many volunteers that dedicated their time and energy to bring this mural to life:

Jake Allen, Kyra Baron, Rose Bielobocky, Ruth Bielobocky, Ryan Choi, Yun Choi, James Garofalo, Anilea Goel, AJ McCory, Suzy McCory, Hailey Mowrey, Ranju Paliwa, Shreya Paliwa, Lanah Pheng, Rebekah Starin, Mariya Struts, Alex Tarquinio, Jed Walsh

Earlier this year, Akre Capital Management sent out a request for mural proposals. Located in idyllic Middleburg, VA, the mural would be painted over a 65 feet wide and 34 feet tall space on the Akre building. The image of the dandelions in various stages of bloom were made to represent the importance of the arts in our daily lives — where we find beauty in the cracks between sidewalks or growing up the sides of walls.

First the design was sketched out by Lori Williams. We gridded the design onto 12×12 panels, which we transposed onto the side of the wall with the help of a bucket truck. Over a few days in the hot summer sun, we laid down the base layer of color following a meticulous set-up of paints in order to get that consistent green color. The details of the dandelions were painstakingly rendered by local professional Penny Hauffe. Thanks to her, the mural was painted in no less than two weeks!

We definitely incorporated what we learned from the Liberty Street mural. You may find more mural designs by Sagetopia in the future.

The stockings have been hung, the ornaments are on the tree, the cookies have been baked (and already eaten)… Sagetopia is ready for the holidays!

Our annual White Elephant gift exchange was held on Wednesday after a team lunch out at Copperwood Tavern. Despite the great variety of gifts, no one had the courage to steal from a coworker. Apparently we are too nice to each other…

As the year is drawing to a close, we have been reflecting on our successes and lessons learned. Each team member shared the most useful piece of advice received throughout the years:

Josh: “Reach”

Dan: “Don’t Do It”

Jon: “The best lessons are from failures”

Connor: “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents”

Song: “When nothing goes right, go left”

Janice: “Fake it till you make it”

Molly: “When life puts you in a tough situation, don’t say ‘why me’ say ‘try me’”

Sung Hee: “Push yourself more than you think you can handle, you’d be surprised how much you’re capable of”

Sagetopia is very thankful for each and every one of our clients and friends. Happy Holidays and we look forward to working with you in the new year!

The Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) is a program that transforms middle and high school students into real-life entrepreneurs and business owners. The YEA students toured Sagetopia and got a chance to learn about our design process and our history.

After seeing Karli’s music video, we all got a kick out of one student asking “Did you really draw that?”

Sagetopia wishes all the best for the YEA!

Discover the charm of Leesburg!

The Town of Leesburg Council approved the installation of a mural on the side of a town-owned building at the Liberty Street parking lot. Proposed and designed by us at Sagetopia, the mural will be installed by volunteers in the coming months and supplies are being donated by Lowes of Leesburg.

We are raising additional funds for the Friends of Leesburg Arts with limited edition screen prints of the design for a donation of $30 or more.

The mural encourages its viewers to explore the Town of Leesburg. Take in the beautiful architecture of the Historic Downtown, wander through galleries filled with the masterful creations of local artisans, bike along the W&OD Trail, relax on the Town green while listening to live music performances, or dine in one of our award winning restaurants.

The mural was illustrated by Karli Mowrey. See the images below for the entire creative process!

After spending 9 amazing years at the Lansdowne Town Center, growing as a company, collaborating with our close neighbors and eating the yummy food from the local restaurants (!), the time has come for the staff of Sagetopia to pack our bags. We are proud to announce our move to Historic Leesburg! We will call this new office home starting on August 1, 2015.

As anyone knows, moving is always a huge undertaking, whether it is across the street or across the country. For us, the move is just a shade less than 5 miles, but the amount of coordination going into it has been tremendous!

With the help of Landmark Group Commercial, we were able to find a building in the historic district that met all of our office criteria. Jacque and Sandy walked us through several spaces in the area, but 203 Liberty Street stood out as the place for us, with a beautiful exterior and architectural details that really caught our eye.

Once the papers were signed, the adventure had only just begun. Renovation was next on the docket, and we at Sagetopia wanted to create a space most conducive to creative productivity. We place a high importance on an open floor plan, where we can collaborate together to create the best work possible. We also wanted to make sure there were compatible areas for brainstorming and meeting with clients.

We also wanted space in our new office to display the work of local artists, and a work area for side projects and endeavors, such as letterpress and paper-making. We are excited to participate in First Friday festivities, with workshops and exhibitions on display, along with the rest of the Historic District.

Once the renovations began, there were plenty of decisions to be made about the space. By day, Sagetopia runs as usual, ensuring quality work is produced for our clients; at night, we let our other creative brain get to work, deciding on flooring, lighting and other interior choices for the space.

The renovations have been a whirlwind, with walls coming down and a spiral staircase rebuilt, leading up to an open loft. Every time we have visited the space during construction, we have found a new element to be excited about. Once completed, we know this will be an ideally suited space for Sagetopia team.

Moving to the Historic District has been an ambition of Sagetopia for quite a few years, and we are so excited to see this dream become a reality. We are ecstatic to call downtown Leesburg home, and hope you’ll swing by if you are ever in the area!

Here at Sagetopia, we believe that we can bring about real change in the world through great design. We were given the opportunity to brand an event for the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce. The chamber’s “Healthy Business Series” event offers their members a great way to show commitment to healthy living, and to support Mobile Hope. Mobile Hope supports hundreds of children in Loudoun County who are either homeless or at risk of homelessness.

The inaugural Superhero 5k Run/Walk and Kids FUN RUN is set to become an annual event in the Loudoun County region, where kids and adults can run and raise money for this worthy cause.

From the beginning we were drawn to superhero comic book elements, with fun speech bubbles, bright colors and action-packed story panels. We also wanted to create a unique mark that could serve as the event’s face. We created several different looks before narrowing down our sketches to what we liked the best!

After a bit of refinement we were able to create just the right smile and superhero hair flip – Have a look!

For the event’s logo, we also wanted to incorporate a fun custom logotype with our superhero symbol. With this composition, the imagery and logo work together or independently, making it versatile for such a promotional item heavy campaign. When we fused the elements together, Lucas Loudoun was born!

Branding this event proved to be both fun and rewarding, but that is only half the battle! We hope to see hundreds of supporters on race day. Become a hero and register by visiting www.loudounchamber.org/Hero. See you there!

As graphic designers, we are always learning the latest in technology. Whether it is a new software or a social media trend, being on top of the latest innovations helps us find the most helpful and creative solutions. Every so often, though, we like to go back to our roots and work on something that is more tactile and hands-on. We purchased a Reprex letterpress several years ago and it is a great outlet for getting our hands dirty and creating small-scale projects.

This holiday season, our Art Director Rachel came to us with a few quotations by one of her favorite poets, Rumi. One of them was, “Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.” We thought it was so beautiful and our gears started turning on how we could incorporate this maxim into a fun hands-on holiday project!

We enlisted the help of illustrator Donna Grethen to compose a few unique letterpress cards, and started our collaboration. She sent some initial sketches over, and it was so difficult to choose!

The Sagetopia team voted on the quotes and sketches that best represented them to us.

Finally, we were able to narrow down the quotations and images to 6 multi-color cards. Once we were able to clean up the images digitally, we sent them to Boxcar Press to have photopolymer plates made.

Using the plates, we began printing our cards on beautiful lettra paper, using the Reprex letterpress.

This kind of printing is a time-consuming, yet incredibly rewarding process. Each color has to be printed separately, and painstakingly lined up for registration. Then, each card is printed individually, as we manually feed the paper through the mechanical press.

After we made it through all of the color layers (7 colors in all!), we sent our precious cargo to the folks at GOOD printers, where they cut and scored the cards for us. It was so exciting to get them back and to see all of the individual cards with letterpress on them.

We are so pleased with the final product, and happy to be able to send to those who have helped to make this year so successful. Happy holidays!