About Recharging You
Our goal is to inspire, motivate, and guide creatives to realize and apply their expertise through training, coaching, and creative activities.
Recharging You was created to support creative entrepreneurs who are working to grow and expand their business. It’s a place where creatives can develop their skills and learn how to utilize their natural talents to build their ideal business and do the work they love. It’s made up of both individual and group coaching services, in-depth, step-by-step courses as well as live on-line and in-person workshops and events.
RECHARGING YOU IS…
Recharging You is a place where ideas are shared, challenged, and strengthened allowing you to create satisfying work while establishing a rewarding source of income.
Our coaching groups are a safe place to get critical, constructive feedback from a knowledgeable team of fellow entrepreneurs and experts.
Individual coaching helps designers and creatives find their niche and learn to focus on and be known for something specific.
Recharging You is a source for challenge activities and idea generating components which allow you to explore and stretch yourself creatively.
We produce project prompts, courses, and exercises that highlight different areas of the creative process. Each activity is much like an individual link that make up the creative process chain, each link adding to the system.
Recharging You has exercises for the entire range of the creative process. This is some of the content that will be covered in courses, blogs, and other resources:
- listening skills
- marketing tactics
- creative block breakers
- idea generation techniques
- collaboration methods
- team building activities
- doubt busters
- presentation do’s and don’ts
- confidence builders
The Team
diane gibbs
Designer, Entrepreneur, Educator, Podcast Host, Consultant, Creative Business Coach
I consider myself a designer first, although I am also an entrepreneur, business owner, consultant, and a college professor. I started professionally designing in 1996 and have fallen deeper in love with design each year. I started my design firm in August of 2002 just before moving to begin my second career as a design professor at the University of South Alabama (Mobile, Alabama). My design firm, little bird communications, has grown every year since but I was working a lot and connecting with professional designers less and less. One reason was because of my location and the other was my busy schedule, between clients and teaching it didn’t leave a lot of time to recharge my batteries.
Working almost everyday for the past ten years I knew I needed inspiration and interaction with other designers but time was tight and I didn’t have the budget to go to more than one conference a year. I read a lot and have a summer filled with mowing grass and listening to podcasts and books. I was growing as much as I could but I knew there was something more. After applying for a position at my alma mater (Auburn University) and not even getting an interview, I started searching for ways to grow and connect with other people in the industry. I started Design Recharge, a web show/podcast in the summer of 2012 and started interviewing designers, illustrators, typographers, professors, business experts, authors, and finally started to feel connected. My growth as a designer and professor skyrocketed. But I enjoyed being able to share what I was learning with others live, creating a community of engaged creatives that are smart and have some serious business savvy.
Through my weekly podcast/web show, Design Recharge, I have built an audience of talented and passionate creatives who are challenging themselves by consistently learning and pushing themselves in their creative projects.
Ashleigh Barkley
Podcast Schedule Manager, Encourager, Prayer Warrior
Ashleigh Barkley joined Design Recharge as diane’s scheduling assistant in 2013 and is a critical part of the team. As a former student of diane’s, she appreciated diane’s commitment to uplifting members of the design community through education and insight during the weekly podcasts and is excited to be a part of the team.
Maddie DuRant
Graphic Designer for Recharging You (plus Design Recharge & Creatives Ignite)
I am a graphic design student studying at the University of South Alabama. I am originally from Daphne, Alabama and graduated from Daphne High School in 2017. My love for art has been apparent throughout my life, but I started drawing more and taking things seriously in high school. After a few years of being unsure of what I wanted to do with my life, I realized that graphic design was my passion. Since graduating high school and moving Mobile to attend South, I was accepted into the design program during my sophomore year. I have since been creating many designs and growing each day in my love of the field. It is truly my passion and I could not imagine myself anywhere else. I am especially interested in branding and illustration.
Aside from being a designer, I am also a follower of Christ, a fine artist, and a musician. I spent my high school years and first two years at South playing the clarinet in the marching band. I have a deep interest in any creative field, so music is definitely another love of mine. I spend most of my free time hanging out with friends or creating art. I have an older brother, a younger sister, and two amazing parents. I feel so blessed to be able to attend USA and pursue my dreams and I absolutely cannot wait to graduate in 2021.
Sarah Barnes
Graphic Designer for Creatives Ignite Camp
Sarah started in the Summer of 2019 as an intern, specifically doing work for the Design Recharge podcast. With Sarah on the team we have been able to expand our show notes area and add transcription to each episode. Sarah is in charge of creating each episode’s promotion graphics. Her addition to the team has been pivotal to the growth of the podcast, she is driven and focused.
