What Clients Are Saying
Lindy Settevendemie | Emory University
The launch for our project with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in New Delhi was tight and ambitious. We were so happy to have Estella on our team. The curriculum was a large complex project with many contributors, so there were many changes that had to be made along the way, both for the creative and the content. Estella was able listen, address all our concerns, create solutions that pleased our large team, guide us through the process and handle everything seamlessly to make an incredibly tight deadline. Near the end, she created covers, managed and provided input on the design for 12 languages. She was able to spearhead and pull everything together for the final push – catching and resolving problems along the way with various translators and coordinating with our printer in India to make our deadline. In the end, the launch was a huge success. Everyone is happy with the product and we have received many compliments on how beautiful the books are – and they have remained high in demand since publication! We look forward to working with Estella again.
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Dallas Gislason | Director of Economic Development, South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP)
As a non-profit economic development agency in Greater Victoria, BC we engaged Estella through a competitive process to help us strategize and design a package of
marketing collateral for the purposes of attracting business and investment to our growing regional economy. This package included development of a visual identity that could challenge the pre-conceived assumptions that our target audience might have about our region. Estella’s strategic approach helped us accomplish this in a professional manner that was refreshing and cutting-edge, but also complementary to our region’s history and values. The brochures and collateral pieces definitely standout among our competitors. Through the process, Estella was very patient with our group decision-making style and made sure through each round of inputs that the integrity of the brand story and the desired outcome was always top-of-mind.
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Todd Cooper | Executive Director, Wholesale Operations, BC Liquor Distribution Branch
When the Liquor Distribution Branch was undergoing an organizational restructure, we engaged Estella to visually brand Wholesale Operations. She was able to hone in on the messages we were trying to get across to create an identity that is modern and fresh, at the same time that still fits within the overall brand and respects the history of the LDB. The visual branding she created extended into supporting our website, where Estella also ensured it worked for our customers, vendors and agents. Estella listened carefully and took our business strategy into consideration during the creative process, which we really valued and made working with her a real partnership. I look forward to working with her again.
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Chelsey Acierno | Columbia College
Columbia College needed help with refreshing our marketing materials for our college and high school programs to compete on an equal footing with our competitors. Estella understands the international educational sector and was able to help us discover our strengths and delve into what makes our college stand apart from other colleges. She was able to translate our strengths into the viewbooks with an easy-to-understand concept that stands out visually – and help us connect to younger audiences for our high school program too. Under her art direction, we now also have a library of great photography to use over the next few years, giving us greater flexibility. Having her on our team was an investment well worth making.
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Barbara Old | Dean, School of Community and International Education, College of New Caledonia
The College of New Caledonia (CNC) needed to refresh our promotional materials for the International Education department, including a viewbook to attract new international students. We engaged Estella to create a new message, look and feel and are so pleased with the results. The theme she came up with resonated well with our target audiences including agents and potential students. Her creative direction, attention to detail, design skills and insistence on only high quality work ensured we had a product that is well-received. I'd highly recommend Estella to anyone needing to create new, fresh and relevant materials for their business.
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Tania Parisella | Director of Marketing & Research, Vancouver Economic Commission
Estella has worked on numerous projects with us over the last 2 years, including a beautiful 120 page business and investment guide we take on our international trade missions. We see her as an extension of our team as she’s very responsive, easy to work with, professional and produces high quality work on time. Her approach is creative, on trend, yet pragmatic with a high attention to detail. She’s solution-minded, so will ask us questions we haven’t thought of and offer alternative solutions that serve us better when needed – we really appreciate and have benefited from her thinking process.
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Joel Solomon | Chairman & Co-Founder, Renewal Funds
Estella brings business acumen to design and marketing solutions. When we started Renewal Funds, we needed branding and communications that match our values and personality. Being very pragmatic, she was able to interpret and foresee not only our needs, but what our audience would feel comfortable with to invest in our fund – trust. With her help, we have now closed two funds, totalling $98 million.
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Jeremy Law | VP/General Manager, Blundell Seafoods Ltd.
Blundell Seafoods was looking to increase its sales in the foodservice sector and we engaged Estella to produce some marketing materials for us. After we had the materials completed – on budget and pre-deadline – we saw a 7.5% increase in sales in this sector. I can directly attribute this to the marketing materials designed by Estella as this was the only difference in the method our sales reps used to approach customers.
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D. Patara | Founder, Indian Elements
We noticed a big difference in how people viewed our product when Estella rebranded our company and redesigned our packaging. We were able to compete toe-to-toe with successful established brands at tradeshows. Grocery stores were finally taking us seriously and we tripled our sales over a few months.
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Lauri Thompson | Founder, Tapestry Philanthropy Partners
What sets Estella apart is that she has exceptional capacity in a variety of strategic areas. She can adapt her design aesthetic to appeal to specifc audiences; she also has a strategic understanding of how an end user would experience her solution at the same time keeping her client’s business objectives in mind. Estella asks questions, she listens, and she offers her advice for making the message and design clear, consistent, aligned and appealing for the end user. What this amounts to, from a practical perspective, is a product that gets it right the first time. I highly recommend Estella Lum and will continue to hire her at every opportunity.
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Diana Bulley | Director, Context Research
Estella has designed a number of projects with Context Research over the last few years, from multi-page booklets for Healthy Families BC and the Heart & Stroke Foundation to newsletters, fact sheets, templates, and ads for the City of Calgary and TransLink. She produces high quality work with a keen eye for design and is collaborative in the creative process. We appreciate Estella’s responsiveness and her ability to work within tight deadlines. Her experience working with government agencies and non-profit organizations has given her a good understanding of their audiences which enables her to produce creative solutions that resonate, often requiring minimal revision.
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