When the creative digital design studio Chasing Brunch launched in September of 2018, like many new companies today it had no office. Co-Founders Ben Laud and Erin Kayvedo started meeting at cafes and brunch spots to take advantage of free Wi-Fi and access to coffee. It turns out that brunch spots prefer that customers order more than a single coffee during a five-hour work day — and bottomless mimosas do eventually have a time limit. A few times, Laud and Kayvedo were asked to leave to make room for the lunch crowd and would need to find a new place to work.
The rest is history. Chasing Brunch is a website design and development and event identity company that has already catered to a variety of clients such as Johnson & Wales and StyleWeek. Although the company officially launched last year, Laud and Kayvedo worked together throughout their undergraduate career. Some highlights include winning the Providence Hackathon for UX in 2016, making a short video game in 72 hours as a part of the 2017 Global Game Jam and designing a streetwear concept for cats. Rhode Island Inno caught up with Laud to discuss the new company.
Rhode Island Inno: What services does Chasing Brunch offer? Who have been some of your clients? Chasing Brunch Team: We’re a creative studio that provides graphic design and custom market-facing assets including websites, branding, packaging, murals and more for innovative companies where authenticity matters. Our proven process allows us to pinpoint what makes a business unique in its market and then tap into those key attributes in order to tell a compelling story.
We’re good at it too. A recent project we launched was for PenTones, an innovative cannabis company based in Los Angeles. Their founder reached out to us with a desire to sell “simply the cleanest, most delicious vape pen ever made,” and ease anxiety around first time cannabis use in her circle of fellow “cool moms.” In order to step away from the stigma that surrounds cannabis products, we built a bright and delightfully interactive menu that educates users about the available cannabis PenTones, while matching users with their ideal product.
RII: What is your connection to the Ocean State and both of your backgrounds? CB: I’m from Belford, New Jersey and Erin is from Waipahu, Hawaii. The two of us met at Johnson & Wales University in our freshman year. We both had never been to Rhode Island before attending school here, but ended up staying after graduation because of the wealth of opportunities we were given by the design community. Providence is a hotbed of creative innovation and we’re happy to call it home.
RII: Is the web design and event identity space competitive in Rhode Island? CB: There are certainly a lot of different agencies, studios and individual creatives in the state’s creative scene. However, we haven’t experienced too much competition. It’s nice to see that everyone generally has their niche, and tends to help each other out more than compete. A lot of our best work has come in the form of referrals from other studios here.
RII: What are your goals over, say, the next year? CB: Right now the most exciting thing on the horizon is our big move into our new office on July 1. We’re setting up shop with a studio space at Rooms & Works on the West End, a fantastic coworking space. We also just completed the Design Catalyst program by DESIGNxRI. This competitive grant program came along at the perfect time for us, allowing us to accelerate our business development and find our voice as a creative studio. Because of the strong foundation we were able to build, we’ve been able to scale our client intake and take on complex and exciting new projects. We’re always looking for new projects, and can’t wait to see what comes next.
