Hidden Gems: Meet Meaghan Barry and Lilian Crum of Unsold Studio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Meaghan Barry and Lilian Crum.  

Hi Meaghan and Lilian, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
We met at Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, MI) in 2010, where we were both in our first year in the graduate 2D program. Prior to this, Meaghan grew up in rural Massachusetts and received her undergraduate degree from Pratt Institute (Brooklyn, NY), while Lilian grew up in rural Ontario, Canada, and received her undergraduate degree from University of Toronto and Sheridan College. At Cranbrook, we learned we worked well together and became close friends. 

After we graduated, Lilian moved back to Toronto and Meaghan stayed in Michigan. During a weekend visit in early 2013, we were talking about how we were both interested in doing freelance design work, but it felt daunting to do it alone. In that moment, we decided without hesitation to partner up. We used a random word generator to come up with “Unsold Studio”, designed a logo, took some headshots (which looked like really bad band photos), and launched a website on it with no work featured. We felt like it was disingenuous to not have true collaborative work on the site. 

Soon after, we helped a friend strategize and brand a pop-up food experience that were hosted in Meaghan’s apartment at the time – we’d literally be doing dishes after designing menus. Soon, that grew into a food truck business that gained some buzz, and slowly we grew our client base beyond friends and family. 

One of the most influential things we did to grow our business was apply for Design Core Detroit’s (then DC3) Creative Ventures Residency program. For six months, we had our office in New Center, Detroit, and learned how to run a creative business: how to write proposals, how to price our work, hired a lawyer, and all the other things you don’t necessarily learn in design school. These skills helped us “level up” and we wouldn’t be here today without that program. (This program no longer exists in this form, but check out their client Services Bootcamp for something similar!) 

In the past nine years, we’ve grown immensely. We were both selected by Crain’s Detroit Business as “Notable Women in Design” in 2020, and in 2019, we represented Detroit and the United States as UNESCO City of Design delegates at Singapore’s Design Week. We’ve spoken about our design work at conferences around the world and have been awarded multiple international design awards. Both of us continue to teach at area universities (Lilian at Lawrence Technological University and Meaghan at Oakland University) on top of serving as partners & creative directors at Unsold. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Being confident that having a small, agile team is right for us! It sometimes felt like in order to be considered successful, we should grow big, hire a ton of employees, get a fancy office, and land big-name clients. While that all sounds great on paper, our challenge has been to define what success actually is for us – and that’s running a boutique-sized studio. We feel like we can best serve our clients by running a smaller office. We’ve had to remind ourselves to “stay in our lane” and not play the comparison game while other studios and agencies follow a more traditional growth model. We know we make great work without needing to be big or glamorous, but sometimes we still need to turn off external pressures and check in with ourselves about what’s ACTUALLY right for us. 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Unsold Studio?
At Unsold Studio, we build your brand. We are experts in making your business stand out from the crowd, creating a first and lasting impression that brings your customers back again and again. 

We offer brand strategy, brand identity, CX (customer experience) design, graphic design, creative direction, and consulting services. 

Some of the accolades we’ve mentioned in previous questions, such as UNESCO delegates and Notable Women in Design, make us very proud. 

Being educators outside of the studio also sets us apart. Our ability to teach strengthens our studio. For example, we can clearly explain why a design is the best solution to our client and we can effectively communicate a client’s brand and value to their target audience because we practice these skills in the classroom with our students. 

As a woman-owned business, it’s been great to help grow so many other businesses owned and led by women through the years. We did not initially set out to do this, but it naturally happened that women-owned businesses gravitated towards us, and the majority of clients were served have women in leadership roles. 

We’re also proud that we’ve maintained working relationships with so many of our clients for three, four, five years, and beyond. We think it speaks highly of our work and our services that folks continue to return to us again and again. We like to think our relationship, as business partners AND best friends, models a working dynamic people want to be a part of. 

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
It makes us happy to see our clients succeed – that means we’re doing a good job! 

Outside of the studio, there’s a lot to be happy about. Now that we’re both in our thirties, we’ve noticed our priorities shift a little. We’re both driven, competitive, and like achieving our goals, so for many years, we were go, go, go. Now happiness is having time to slow down and unplug. When we give ourselves the gift of “turning off” without any guilt, that makes us happy. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.unsoldstudio.com
• Instagram: @unsoldstudio

Image Credits
J. Lindsey Photography LTD