{"id":3835,"date":"2017-11-28T20:45:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T20:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/?post_type=customer-spotlight&p=3835"},"modified":"2025-05-06T20:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T20:01:11","slug":"digital-storytellers-and-dreamhost-super-fans","status":"publish","type":"customer-spotlight","link":"https:\/\/news.dream.press\/news\/customer-spotlight\/digital-storytellers-and-dreamhost-super-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Paula and Debbi: Digital Storytellers and DreamHost Super Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DreamHost customers Paula Johnson and Debbi Patrick \u2014 Paula, a longtime devotee, and Debbi, her good friend and a\n more recent convert \u2014 have officially reached fangirl status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, only the truest (and bravest) of DreamHost diehards would brave LA traffic to party with us at\n our 2017 Reach Out and Touch You event<\/a> in\n Santa Ana, California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was like going to a really fun wedding \u2014 only no one was getting married,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cI got to meet Paul,\n the DreamPress<\/a> marketing\n manager, and the actual other\n customers<\/a> are really nice too. Everyone has a different approach to how they use DreamHost, but nobody has an\n attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From left: Debbi Patrick and Paula Johnson talk with Paul Mosley during the\n 2017 Reach Out & Touch You Tour.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith working at home, it was great to get out and stay up on the latest and greatest changes,\u201d Patrick adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both are residents of Pasadena, California; Johnson is a marketer and web designer, and Patrick is one of Johnson\u2019s\n clients: a storytelling artist and owner of Telling Images<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it is the intersection of these super fans\u2019 backgrounds that truly illustrates the power of the web \u2014 and a great\n website \u2014 to build fulfilling careers.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Marketing Mom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Offering up \u201cmarketer and web designer\u201d as a description of what Paula Johnson does is accurate \u2014 but not in the\n least bit comprehensive. She\n wears a closet full of hats<\/a>, and she\u2019s always on the lookout for more.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019m the DreamHost customer, website designer, standup comedian, wedding officiant who wants to be a publisher,\u201d\n Johnson laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting to see where life takes you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After earning a degree in journalism and working in PR, Johnson found herself between jobs and building a strong\n portfolio of freelance clients. \u201cI wrote a lot,\u201d she says. \u201cPR writing, copywriting, pieces for executives,\n instruction manuals; you name it, I wrote it.\u201d She was just trying to stay afloat during her job hunt \u2014 until Johnson\n realized she already had a pretty great gig working for herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when the internet started heating up, Johnson spotted a new market to edge into. \u201cI realized that I had a good\n design sense,\u201d she says. \u201cI also realized that a lot of web designers at the time knew coding but didn\u2019t have any\n taste, and then there were people who had wonderful taste and their sites are so beautiful, but it takes an hour and a\n half to load because they don\u2019t want to optimize things. Somewhere in between those two people, there was an\n opportunity for someone like me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So she headed back to school, taking a few courses in coding amidst a crowd of younger students \u2014 once even being\n mistaken by a classmate for the professor: \u201cI told him, \u2018No, dude, I\u2019m just really old.\u2019\u201d Even with the growing pains,\n Johnson has made it a point to pivot to remain relevant to her clients. \u201cYou need to reinvent yourself every five or\n six years in terms of your career because things change,\u201d Johnson says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since learning coding and web design, she\u2019s studied social media marketing strategies, started designing book\n interiors and covers to match the rise in self-publishing, taken digital photography and Photoshop classes, learned\n the basics of Snapchat and Tumblr, and always has an eye out for the next trend. \u201cWhen business slows down in a weird\n way, it makes me think that maybe it\u2019s time to open up another bag of tricks,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That ever-growing bag of tricks benefits Johnson\u2019s own operations, but she collects it primarily to help her\n clientele of fellow small-business owners. \u201cMy clients are authors, experts, consultants, independent stores,\u201d Johnson\n says. \u201cThat\u2019s great because I love working directly with the owner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New clients usually come in the door wanting to build a specific type of website. \u201cSometimes they are right, and\n sometimes that\u2019s not what they need at all,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Johnson\u2019s website features a large portfolio, highlighting her biggest\n projects.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Johnson helps some build their business branding from scratch, designing logos and even exterior signage alongside\n building website and writing copy. She also enjoys what she calls \u201csalvage jobs,\u201d once taking on a client who already\n had two failed website redesigns under her belt. Johnson doesn\u2019t shy away from telling her clients when they\u2019re wrong\n \u2014 she refers to herself as a \u201cdigital marketing counselor,\u201d though Johnson\u2019s methods have earned her another nickname\n from a longtime client: the marketing mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have any kids, I\u2019m not a mom,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting what people say about you that surprises you\n but ends up being secretly true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years ago, Johnson \u201caccidentally\u201d won a stand-up comedy class at a silent charity auction. \u201cMy scheme was going\n around adding my name to ones with no bids yet, and if people see someone else wants it then they will go ahead and\n bid on it too,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cI thought that I had probably won the martini-making kit \u2014 but no, it was the stand-up\n comedy class.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six weeks later, Johnson found herself in front of a packed comedy club with her classmates, each performing a\n five-minute set of comedy. \u201cAnd I did it,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t explode or spontaneously combust, and it was kind of\n fun!\u201d She\u2019s performed off and on since then and still runs an open mic night at a friend\u2019s bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her humor bleeds into her day job: \u201cI always like to inject some humor into the writing. People come to me because\n they want things made a little bit more interesting. Humor is a great connector; you don\u2019t have to be hysterically\n funny, just mildly funny. One of my clients sells cemetery plots. There\u2019s no room for humor, but it\u2019s nice to take a\n conversational tone that\u2019s not sterile or academic. You really want to reach out with those words and hopefully\n influence actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of everything else (yes, getting her laundry done is a struggle, Johnson laughs), she runs a blog that publishes short\n fiction<\/a> \u2014 emphasis on short<\/em>. She publishes 1,000-word flash fiction or micro-fiction, complete stories\n in less than 100 words. Johnson is working on an anthology of flash and micro-fiction and plans to create her own\n publishing imprint for authors looking to self-publish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Originally, the blog served as test site for Johnson\u2019s experiments with HTML\n and Javascript.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of all Johnson does, her primary identity is as a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it comes right down to it, I always want to be writing,\u201d she says. \u201cFor myself, for other people, for comedy,\n for fiction. I am a writer and everything else piles on to that. Photography, web design, comedy\u2014 it\u2019s really\n just more excuses to write.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telling Images<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Debbi Patrick is a career journalist turned artist. And that transition was not much of a stretch for her; in both\n arenas, Patrick plays storyteller.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI love to tell stories about people, and I love assembling and creating these pieces that have stories behind them\n using elements that are meaningful or tell a story about someone,\u201d Patrick says. \u201cIt\u2019s using the same skills as\n writing a feature for a magazine but in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Patrick trained as a photographer and her pieces have placed in photography competitions, there\u2019s no camera\n whatsoever involved in her artwork. Instead, she arranges (and rearranges and rearranges) objects \u2014 she specializes in\n mementos such as heirloom\n jewelry<\/a>, keepsakes, and photographs interspersed with flowers and greenery \u2014 atop a scanner and captures digital\n images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patrick stumbled upon her craft \u2014 scanography<\/a> \u2014\n when a member of her local film and photography group displayed images he had captured with a scanner and then\n introduced her to the process. \u201cThe pieces he had created didn\u2019t look like anything I\u2019d ever seen,\u201d she remembers. So\n Patrick toured his studio and tried her hand at composing and scanning a few pieces. Initial feedback was glowing; she\n fell in love with the process and its storytelling potential and knew she had discovered her niche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a quality of light that is totally different from photography,\u201d Patrick says. \u201cThis is an even flat light\n that runs the length of an image. And it\u2019s a short depth of field, the light is only about an inch deep; everything\n after that goes black. You get a very interesting depth of field where everything on a certain plane is sharp but\n things fall away very quickly. Because you are shooting elements lying directly on the glass you can get a sense of\n them floating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A favorite\n piece <\/a>of Patrick\u2019s tells the story of a 19th-century hotel that her friends had purchased and\n renovated. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI asked for some of the things they found in the house while they were working on it,\u201d Patrick says. \u201cThey gave me\n 100-year-old keys, nails, medicine bottles, letters they had found in the walls, pieces of wallpaper, and a baby shoe.\n I took all those pieces, plus some petals from the tree in their yard, and I added some greenery to create a piece\n about the house\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The story of the hotel is told through a collection of objects found onsite.\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Patrick has also created personally meaningful pieces, including a tribute to her late husband<\/a> and a celebration of her\n grandparents<\/a> featuring their wedding rings and the Swedish crystal lovebirds she gave them for their 60th\n anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe Wedding\u201d represents the 65-year marriage of the artist\u2019s grandparents.\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Patrick\u2019s studio is filled with props she uses to complement her pieces. One of her favorite \u2014 and most challenging \u2014\n ways to create her work is with plant and flower arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m using live flowers, I have to work pretty quickly; they will wilt fast,\u201d Patrick says. \u201cIt might take me\n anywhere from an hour to four hours to get it right. Sometimes I will start the night before and have to put it away\n and leave it there until the next morning and then start over again. Persimmons and pods last longer so I can play a\n little longer, but when I\u2019m working with cactus flowers I\u2019ve got to move fast. I\u2019ve also put petals in oil and they\n become almost transparent, and that\u2019s fun too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many of Patrick\u2019s images use only greenery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Soon Patrick was showing her work at local galleries. A few years ago, she left her job in annual giving at CalTech\n and decided to dive into full-time art creation. After a career in freelance writing and journalism, non-profit\n communications, and advertising (including a stint working for Bob Hope), Patrick founded a business to sell her art.\n She called it Telling Images<\/a>, a name\n that both describes the pieces she creates and draws on her background as a journalist and photographer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond hours creating commissions and originals in her studio, the business side of Telling Images has demanded much\n of Patrick\u2019s attention. \u201cPromote, promote, promote,\u201d she says. \u201cI have to network and be out and about showing my\n work, being a part of open studios and using all the tools I can online. I enjoy it but find it challenging to come up\n with the right offers. You can promote almost anything, but it\u2019s really hard to promote your own work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter the Marketing Mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nailing a Business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Patrick is one of Johnson\u2019s clients \u2014 and the two are longtime friends. \u201cDebbi is a hoot! She\u2019s really passionate\n about her work,\u201d says Johnson. They met about 20 years ago in a Pasadena writing group and have collaborated on other\n projects through the years before working on Telling Images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt first, it was kind of hard to explain Debbi\u2019s scanning work and what she was doing,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cShe came to\n me for her website, to get things organized, and it was really another case of a client thinking they wanted one\n thing, but maybe there was more to the story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patrick says her original business model was built on commission. \u201cIt\u2019s great when commissions happen, but that\u2019s\n hard to scale,\u201d she says. Johnson helped point Patrick to an aspect of her business that was moving faster: smaller\n art prints and greeting cards. \u201cPeople love buying the cards, three or four stores were carrying them, so we talked\n about making that an anchor point,\u201d Patrick says. \u201cWe redid the site specifically for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Art Cards page of Patrick\u2019s website now features prominently in the\n navigation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First, Johnson got Patrick set up\n on a WordPress site<\/a> that she can easily update and maintain on her own. \u201cThen she hooked up with the\n e-commerce plugin,\u201d adds Johnson, \u201cand now the website really promotes the cards first. \u2018And, by the way, she\u2019ll\n do commissions.\u2019 So we flipped her original model.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cards add a practical aspect to her art, Patrick says. \u201cPeople would much rather buy a vase because it feels\n utilitarian, rather than spend money on a two-dimensional art piece. The greeting cards are something they can use.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson is also helping Patrick increase her offerings in other ways. In the works are plans to create personal totem\n images of important or defining items that people can carry around with them. Patrick\u2019s also gearing up to promote\n commissions by networking with interior designers and decorators who may be interested in specialty pieces for their\n clients, and she\u2019s in talks to get her work displayed in a Pasadena showcase house<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

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