The Boss
Co-founder
Rhiannon Humes
Rhiannon is the co-founder and CEO of Humes Design. She got her start designing flyers and logos for her parents’ grocery store as a kid — the kind of work that looks terrible in hindsight but taught her everything about what makes people actually look at something.
She studied graphic design and advertising at Cal State Northridge, then spent several years at a mid-size LA agency running branding projects before she and Dan decided to do their own thing in 2011.
Rhiannon runs the creative side of the shop. She’s the one who sits with clients and figures out what their brand actually needs to say — not what they think it should say, but what’s going to connect with their audience. She’s particular about the details (ask anyone on the team), but that’s why clients keep coming back.
The Minion
Co-Founder
Dan Humes
Dan co-founded Humes Design with Rhiannon in 2011 after spending years at agencies wondering why so many good ideas got killed by bad process.
He handles the marketing and technology side — the part where creative work meets the real world. Campaign strategy, analytics, making sure the website actually converts, that kind of thing. He’s the one who gets excited about A/B test results and then has to explain to everyone else why they should be excited too.
Dan’s thing is figuring out what’s working and what isn’t, then adjusting fast. He’s not precious about ideas that aren’t performing, which keeps the team honest. He also somehow finds time to mentor the junior staff, mostly by pulling them into projects and letting them figure things out with backup.
Visual Artist
SR ART DIRECTOR
Sahar
Sahar has been shooting and directing creative projects for over 15 years, and at this point she can light a set in her sleep. She came up through fashion and beauty photography in LA, which means she’s seen every trend come and go at least twice.
As our art director, she runs all the visual production — photography, styling, creative direction. She’s the person who looks at a brief and already knows what the final shot should feel like before anyone picks up a camera.
What makes her good at this isn’t just the technical skill (though that helps). It’s that she actually listens to what clients want and then figures out how to make it better than what they imagined. She’s collaborative without being a pushover, which is a harder balance than it sounds.
IT GURU
Sr Developer
Jared
Jared’s been writing code since his dad gave him a computer at 12. By the time he got to UCLA for computer science, he was already freelancing on the side building websites — which is how he ended up connected with us in the first place.
He’s our lead developer and the person responsible for making sure everything we design actually works when someone clicks on it. He handles the full stack — front-end builds, back-end architecture, CMS setups, e-commerce integrations. If it involves code, Jared’s probably already halfway done with it.
He’s particular about clean code and fast load times, which sometimes means he’ll push back on a design choice if it’s going to tank performance. The designers have learned to appreciate that, eventually.
Wordsmith
Sr Copywriter
Erin
Erin handles all the copy that comes out of our shop — website content, ad campaigns, social media, brand voice guides, you name it. She’s been doing brand marketing and copywriting for about ten years and she’s fast, which matters more than people think in this business.
She’s the person who takes a 45-minute client call and turns it into copy that sounds like the client always wished they could say about themselves. Her drafts are usually close to final, which saves everyone rounds of revisions.
Erin works closely with the design team to make sure the words and visuals are actually telling the same story. She’s also the unofficial voice of reason when a project starts creeping in scope — she’ll be the first one to say “what are we actually trying to say here?” which is usually the question everyone needed to hear.