These girls aren’t COASTing

This summer, BC juniors Ali Rae Hunt, Breck Wills, and Brielle Mariucci started a branding and redesign company called COAST.

After working with Madrigal Singers, The Fashion Club of Boston College, and Art Club, it’s obvious that COAST has found an important – and otherwise unoccupied – niche on campus.

So, The Tab went to chat with the girls about their backgrounds, team dynamics, and plans for the future.

Thanks for having me over. Tell me about your company. 

Ali Rae: We formed COAST this summer. It’s a branding and redesign group. We offer logo redesign services, web redesign and social media strategy. It works well because we all have different skill sets.

What do each of you do? 

Ali Rae: I’m a communication major. I worked at a branding firm this summer so I know how to manage accounts. I know social media strategy, write the copy, and do the copy-editing for the web redesign.

Brielle: I do the graphic design. I make the logos. Ali Rae usually has the ideas for them. I just make it happen.

Breck: I study computer science and art, so I’m going to go towards the tech side of the company. This summer I was a front-end web developer, so I [look forward to] learning about that. I think we would like to move in that direction, making sites from scratch.

Is that why you wanted to do rebranding – because it fits all your interests? 

Brielle: Yeah. We figured that out over the summer when we talked about our jobs. We thought, “all of these could work well together. We could do something to advance all of our portfolios.”

Ali Rae: We realized our group message was all weird design pictures – and weird GIFS – but mostly design stuff. 

What else are you involved in on campus?

Breck: I’m the graphics editor for The Heights newspaper. Last year I was on the team for the women’s summit, Own It, and now I’m the Director of Graphic Design.

Brielle: Last year, I was a graphics intern for the Arts Council. I redid their logo and made their flyers and materials for the festival, like the “make it pop” image.

Ali Rae: I’m the PR director for the Fashion Club, so I make their flyers, posters, and I also made their blog. I’m also a writer and an editor for Her Campus, and I’m the editorial and marketing intern for Boston College Magazine.

Is this the kind of work you want to do after college?

Brielle: I did a graphic design internship this summer in San Francisco, so I think that’s kind of what I want to do. There’s not a lot of graphic design opportunities in the classroom at BC. Doing something like COAST is a good “learn by doing” experience.

Breck: My internship was more tech-based because it was for an engineering firm. That helped me realize I would much rather be in a creative field doing web design.

Ali Rae: I see myself in a branding or marketing environment. This summer at my internship you’d see people come in with really bad logos, but they were so passionate about what they were doing. Through the rebranding process we were helping them find who they really are and then portraying that to their consumers.

Ali Rae, we’ve had a few conversations about logos and who should be rebranding.

 Brielle: It’s really frustrating. We literally are walking down the street –

Ali Rae: We get so mad! We say things like, “what is that restaurant doing! Ugh, that’s so bad!”

Brielle: It’s interesting, knowing what’s easy to do on Photoshop and Illustrator versus what makes us think “oh, that’s really impressive,” because we can’t figure out how they did it. Once we get a solid portfolio, we want to work with a non-profit or someone just a little bigger outside of BC.

It must be hard to do this and classwork. You make it look effortless! You’re involved with so much on campus.

Brielle: We see it as fun and want to get [rebrands] done for people quickly. We were just with Art Club to do their logo and were on our computer until midnight making logos and getting everything ready, but that’s because it’s fun.

Do you get paid? 

Ali Rae: Eventually we will, but for any design or marketing firm you need a portfolio before people take you seriously. We’ve offered BC clubs and organizations free brand and website redesign in order to build our portfolio. So far we’ve rebranded Madrigal Singers, Fashion Club, and also the Surf Club at Florida State University.

What’s your favorite part about your work with COAST? 

Ali Rae: The most exciting part is when we are all sitting down making the logo, do one thing to it, and all yell, “Yes!”

Brielle: There’s so much you can do with these programs. I don’t see myself as a freelance artist, but always knew I wanted to do something creative. As a designer you have your own style, but you’re also trying to please someone else. That’s something I like – finding something we all agree on and feeling like “Oh, they’ll love this one!” Being part of a bigger picture, like another organization, is really cool.

Ali Rae and Brielle, I know you’re going abroad next semester. Will the company keep going? 

Breck: I’m staying, and I’m going to take on a bigger role once they’re gone. I’ll communicate between them and whoever we’re working with here. Hopefully we can continue for a while. I have a picture of us eating a chicken wing, do you want it for the article?

Yeah! Send me cool pictures of you guys! 

Brielle: We’re the kind of girls who watch movies on the weekend.

Breck: We watch movies, sleep, and sit in bed.

Brielle: People just think we’re cool because we dress cool. We have overalls!