Personal Branding

Mary Grace Moyd (Wallace) is the founder of Writefully His and the Executive Director of her families foundation, Thrive Global Project. Writefully His is a company, and movement, that provides school supplies to children in Africa. Moyd curates beautiful stationery and other items and donates proceeds to the purchase of notebooks and pencils to students in Africa. You can listen to her mission and where her company came from here.

I had worked with Moyd before and was super excited to get the chance again. I walked into Grace’s space in downtown Spartanburg and was immersed in lovely little pieces of mail-able artwork. It was a light, airy, relaxed space. She has this smile that lights up any room and her joy and enthusiasm is infectious. I had my daughter with me and Grace loved that. M walked about snapping shots with her own digital camera and we giggled and chatted. We shot some bits inside and then all took a walk about town. We shot on our way down the street and ended up in Morgan Square where I captured the most beautiful light and more of Moyd’s trademark smile.

The day was well spent and I am honored to have been able to work with such an amazing soul.

Digital Presentation Design

So I met Mary Grace Wallace at Startup Weekend in Spartanburg back in the spring of 2014. I had a blast and she is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to what she believes in. She started WritefullyHis after a trip to Uganda and, well, it’s become much more than just pretty paper.

Grace was asked to speak at the 2014 Carolina Alliance Bank Women’s Luncheon and needed a presentation to go with her speech. She contacted me and we quickly got started. I sifted through the hundreds of beautiful photos from her trip to Africa as well as created a few custom brand images to finish out the presentation. I had the privilege of attending the luncheon as Grace’s guest and although her talk was relatively short, you could feel the passion this young woman has for what she is doing. Watching the video of Grace visiting these children in Uganda and hearing her tell the story of how her business came to be, I was moved to tears. More than once.

Telling a Story and Tying it All Together

What started as some typesetting, image editing and info graphic building became something that told a story and caused the audience to sympathize with millions of children in a far away country. A presentation isn’t just a bunch of slides filled with boring statistics and facts. An effective presentation should do a few things:

1. You should tell your story as simply as possible. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Make it something your audience will want to flip through.
2. Your slides should flow from one to the other and make sense. Play the presentation without your script. Does it still make sense?
3. Consider your audience. Even though you are selling something specific, your venue and your audience should be taken into consideration. How you present your presentation and how you prepare your script should depend, in part, on who you are speaking to.