On Thursday, May 7, students from Boise State’s graphic design program will put their work on display at the Blue Galleries in the Center for the Visual Arts. For the students, it’s the culmination of their creative output at Boise State, and they join a long line of alumni who once stood in the exact same position.
Frannie Wilson (B.F.A., Graphic Design and Photography, 2009) is one such alum. The seeds of her current success, as co-founder and CEO of local branding agency Ampersand Studios, started the semester leading up to her own senior showcase.
“My business partner and I decided, ‘Let’s just spend this whole semester creating a branding business and we’ll hand out business cards [at the showcase],’” Wilson said.
That idea turned into Ampersand Studios. Wilson and her co-founder, fellow Boise State alum Nichole Schoener, started the business while they were still students. Their first jobs were covering weddings.
“We thought we were going to be a branding agency, but we were also photographers and at that age where all our friends were getting married,” Wilson said. “The first iteration of Ampersand was a wedding photography business.”
They quickly branched out, offering family portraits, senior photos and other popular photography services, but Wilson never lost sight of the original vision. “We thought of weddings as mini branding projects,” she said. “They each have their own colors and vibe.”
In 2013, Ampersand added a retail location. They did wedding invitations in the front and ran a paper business on the backend. “We sold bulk paper to churches and schools and all that stuff,” Wilson said. “It was like a Dunder Mifflin operation.”
If there’s one feature that has defined Wilson’s work at Ampersand Studios, it’s adaptability. When the paper industry declined as business moved online, Wilson returned to the original vision that she and her partner had as students. Ampersand stepped into its own as a branding agency, offering commercial photography and social media services.
In that way, Wilson’s own Boise State journey sort of resembles Ampersand. She started as a math major, transitioning into graphic design and photography after discovering art through the core classes her degree required.
“I switched majors a few times,” she said. “I was interested in the arts and I thought maybe architecture, because it combined math and art. Then I heard about graphic design and I was like, ‘That’s it.’”
Wilson can trace her artistic skills back to her time at Boise State. “I was never taught how to be a wedding photographer, but going through all these projects for school gave me a playground to develop my skills,” she said.
Ampersand turns 17 this year and business is good. Wilson recently bought out her co-founder Schoener and employs seven full-time staff, including three other Boise State alumni. The company has added a ready-to-post social media subscription service to its offerings. Now Wilson is looking to the future.
“I feel like the beginning — and by beginning, I mean the first 15 years, was like going to a buffet and trying everything that’s there,” she said. “Now the vision is to scale the offers we have. We’re excited to take that, make it bigger and bring on more team members.”
Today’s graduating graphic design students will soon stand where Wilson stood 17 years ago, presenting their senior portfolios. Come see the work of Boise’s future creative leaders at the Blue Galleries in the Center for the Visual Arts this May 7 starting at 5 p.m.