Blog

Today we are featuring Kevin Mellen in our partner spotlight!

Kevin Mellen is the owner of Creative Mellen and he is our design partner at Big Imprint. His main focus of his business is branding. He is an expert at crafting a unique identity to help organizations stand out from the crowd. He is well-versed from logo design, website design, product packaging, and other collateral.

Kevin’s favorite part about working with Big Imprint is the high level of quality that can be achieved. He also likes that Big Imprint does a lot of things similarly in regard to how to treat clients and the expectation to overdeliver whenever possible.

Idea Behind Creative Mellen: Kevin started out his career at a small design shop and then worked for a few large agencies in many different positions. Due to the experience he gained working at those agencies he became more confident in going out on his own. He had already been doing some freelance work at the time and decided to take the leap to create Creative Mellen.

Creative Mellen is small on purpose. Kevin wanted to provide the same level of quality content as larger agencies, but with even better service. The small business environment provided that opportunity.

Partnership with Big Imprint: Due to Kevin’s commitment to provide high quality work and excellent service, he tends to work with small to medium-size companies. Kevin and Ethan met at EntreFEST and got to know each other and their companies. A few years later they started working together and haven’t looked back since.

Background: Kevin is originally from Illinois. His family moved several times, so he grew up in small towns dotted between Chicago and Peoria. For the last 20 years or so he has lived in Iowa City with his wife. They have a golden retriever named Sandie. Sandie comes into the office a couple times a week and holds the position of Wellness Director and Co-Owner.

What Kevin Likes to Do: Kevin’s favorite thing to do is having a relaxing dinner with his wife. He will always stop his work to have dinner no matter how late he is planning to work. Kevin and his wife also enjoy vacationing. Their favorite spot is the country of Panama and they have gone seven times!

Other Hobbies/Interests: Kevin loves doing yard work. He also enjoys working on things around the house. He dabbles in wood working and has even made some of the furniture that is in his office.

Community Involvement: Kevin is well known for providing internships to design students. The education of design and business of design is really important to him. He wants to help design students learn real life skills. Kevin partners with the University of Iowa design program and the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business when opportunities arise.

Top Likes/Dislikes: Kevin enjoys listening to hip hop music. Billy Ocean was one of his first favorite musical artists. He dislikes country music, and when people don’t use their turning signal.

Fun Facts: 

• Kevin liked Hip Hop music before it was even a genre.
• He enjoys watching car shows like Roadkill.
• Kevin is an adventurous eater!
• He is a HUGE Mac geek! Kevin keeps up with the latest technology and reads all the blogs about Macs.

We hope you learned a little bit more about him in this partner spotlight. You can read a little more about Kevin here.

Today we are featuring Gilad Aharoni in our employee spotlight. Learn all about him from his hobbies and interests to his favorite thing about Big Imprint!

Gilad Aharoni is our Web Developer at Big Imprint. He does the majority of the heavy lifting behind the scenes for our clients. You could say that Gilad is the one who brings your website to life!

Since we primarily build custom websites, Gilad likes the fact that each project is a little bit different from the last. He enjoys a challenge and the chance to learn something. Being a web developer, he gets a lot of joy in taking a design and turning it into a real-life website. He also loves the flexibility that comes with working for a small company instead of a large corporation.

Background: Gilad is originally from Israel and has been in the United States for 15 years now. He currently lives in Iowa City with his wife and daughter. He got into website development when he was creating a website for origami. Gilad quickly realized that he had a passion for website development and turned it into a profession. He has now worked for Big Imprint for nearly eight years and we are so happy that he’s a part of the team.

What I Like To Do:Gilad loves to play board games. He brings them into the office for an occasional friendly competition game. His favorite board game at the moment is Wingspan. Gilad has also recently started playing the ukulele in his free time. To relax, Gilad enjoys reading a nice book.

Hobbies/Interests: One of Gilad’s biggest hobbies is Origami. He runs the world’s biggest Origami website. If you ever stop into the Big Imprint office, you can see some of his creations.

Fun Fact:

• Gilad owns around 500 board games!

I hope you learned a little about the person behind the curtain in this employee spotlight. Gilad enjoys working hard to make your website just the way you want it! Read a little more about him here.

Today we are featuring Cassie Rottink in our employee spotlight.

Cassie Rottink is the Project Manager at Big Imprint, which involved working with our clients to keep their project on track. This involves everything from scheduling meetings, answering phone calls/emails, paperwork, and much more. She has only been here a few months, but already loves working with the people. Ethan, Gilad, and Kevin are great! They are talented at what they do and always keep the workplace fun. She loves working with our clients, seeing their excitement as they are going through the design process and then finally seeing everything come together with the completed website. For Cassie, this is one of the most rewarding parts of her job.

Cassie is originally from Waverly, IA, but has spent the last four years in Dubuque, IA. She graduated from Loras College in May 2020 with a degree in Public Relations and minors in Business and Rhetoric & Public Writing.

What I Like To Do: Cassie likes to hangout with her friends and family. They do a little bit of everything from crafts to movie marathons to planned trips. She loves swimming and sitting down with a good book. In most of her free time, you can catch her listening to music. She loves going on adventures whether it is somewhere in the United States or overseas.

Hobbies/Interests: Crafts are one of her favorite things to do. She spends a lot of time canvas painting or saving crafts on Pinterest. Recently, she has gotten into cooking healthy meals. Cassie has never really been what you would call a “great cook”, but she has started to enjoy making new things. Traveling is another thing Cassie loves to do when she can. Seeing all the new places and trying new things is so much fun!

Top Likes/Dislikes: Cassie loves chocolate milk, pizza, and pasta. Noodles and Company & Wig and Pen are two of her favorite restaurants. Her favorite sports team is the Chicago Cubs. Sea Turtles are her favorite animal and she can’t wait to see one in person someday. On the other hand she really dislikes storms especially tornadoes. Cassie does not enjoy eating seafood, cake, or pie at all and avoids them at all costs.

Fun Facts:

• Cassie’s favorite place she has traveled to so far is Italy. It was gorgeous and the culture was amazing. She loved the pizza and pasta. The gelato was melt in your mouth delicious.
• Cassie is an extremely picky eater.
• She has only had serious injuries on the left side of her body.
  (broken ankle and wrist, strained MCL)
• Cassie likes to create designs for social media, posters, flyers, brochures and a million other things on Photoshop.

We hope you enjoyed meeting the person behind the screen in this employee spotlight. Cassie is excited to work with you! Read a little more about her here.

Today we are featuring Ethan Anderson in our employee spotlight. Learn all about our Head Honcho from what he likes to do to his hobbies and interests to his favorite thing about Big Imprint!

Ethan Anderson is the Owner of Big Imprint and he also calls himself the CPW, which stands for Chief Plant Waterer. He has the responsibilities of being an owner, but he also is always ready to get his hands dirty with whatever needs to be done, whether that is watering the office plants or taking out the trash. In a small business like Big Imprint, we all pitch in and wear many hats.

Ethan’s favorite part about the company we are building is the freedom and challenge of charting our own path. As a team we get to decide what projects to focus on and take. This allows us to build the company how we want it to be.

Idea Behind Big Imprint: It all started when he was in college. Ethan really liked world music and wanted to make an online magazine about this specific genre. It was to be called Global Music Magazine. He began to look into how to build a website. The rest is history. Ethan became so invested in building the website that he never actually published the magazine.

After that taste of web design, Ethan continued to build websites for himself and his friends. The word spread. He started to help other people with their websites, and a thought came to him. People would actually pay for this work! Ethan started to seek out larger projects and selling website work to local shops and non-profits. This was still a side job at the time, but within a year of starting this work on the side, he took the leap to start building websites full time and started Big Imprint.

Education: Ethan has a BBA in Marketing from the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.

Background: Ethan and his wife have been married for nearly 11 years. They have three kids who are ages nine, seven, and five. Their daughter Liliana (age nine) comes into the office and helps out by opening mail and filling out her father’s Menards rebate forms. Ethan and Bethany are both originally from Muscatine, Iowa. His family has been living in West Liberty, Iowa for about the past ten years now and they love the small-town feel. Deciding to locate the Big Imprint office in downtown West Liberty is something Ethan says he is really happy about. They were able to purchase the office building office and renovate it much more affordably than office space in a larger city. Plus, there’s parking right outside the front door, which is not something you can get everywhere!

What I Like to Do: Ethan’s favorite thing to do in his free time is to hang out with his wife and kids. A lot of these involve outdoor activities. They love going on bike rides, doing yard work, exploring the woods, or flying kites. Board games are another one of their favorite things to do as a family. A game called Loot is one of their favorite games to play right now, which was recommended by our web developer Gilad. Ethan’s boys are getting into bigger projects such as building a go-kart or launching model rockets. His daughter Liliana loves crafty projects and is an expert lemonade stand proprietor. They love spending time together no matter what they are doing!

Other Hobbies/Interests: Ethan loves traveling anywhere and everywhere, and in particular he loves visiting the Middle East. He also really enjoys music and is a piano player. When it’s nice outside, he’ll take his classic motorcycle out for a ride.

Community Involvement: Ethan is heavily involved in the local community. He is a big believer in helping out your community in any way that you can. Recently he has taken the position of lead pastor at his church, and he is super excited to take on this role. He has served on the board of directors for the West Liberty Chamber of Commerce and the West Liberty Economic Area Development group. Ethan has also been very involved with is the local Rotary Club, where he has served as President. Currently Ethan is on the board of the West Liberty Community Center and the West Liberty Community Fund.

Top Likes/Dislikes: First of all, Ethan is always willing to try new things. His top likes for food are burgers and Latin American food. Ethan likes traveling a lot! His favorite music is a unique blend of world music and electronica music. Ethan has never been a fan of the typical music that everyone listens to on the radio. He dislikes sushi and shellfish.

Fun Facts: 

• Ethan once spent a summer backpacking across North Africa.
• He would love to participate in an off-road rally race across the desert someday.
• He spent a year living in Israel as a volunteer and can speak conversational Arabic.
• Ethan loves following design trends and is currently really enjoying “brutalist” design (if you don’t know what that is, just ask him and I’m sure he would love to talk your ear off about it).
• He was homeschooled when he was growing up, so this year’s pandemic trend of homeschooling is nothing new for him!

Ethan loves building this company and getting to work with allof you. We hope you learned a little bit more about him and the brains behind the business in this employee spotlight. You can read a little more about Ethan here.