About PHDS

The Patrick Houston Design Studio opened its doors in 2005.

After 20+ years in the Advertising Agency business in Little Rock, Arkansas, I was compelled to make a leap of faith and open my own little design shop.

It’s been an interesting and rewarding journey.

I’ve been fortunate to do solid work for clients large and small and many of those clients have been with me from the very beginning.

I have also been fortunate to have the love, support and encouragement of my beautiful and talented wife, international celebrity Kyran Pittman, pictured below. Click to embiggen.

When I first began in the advertising business in 1985, Al Gore had not yet invented the internet. Computers weren’t used. Graphic design was all done by hand at a drawing table with sharpened sticks and quill pens.

When I was hired at Stone Ward in 1989, Larry Stone pointed to the Apple Machintosh IIci on my desk and said “Figure it out”.

So I did.

I took to it immediately. It appealed to me on a lot of levels. I have a natural mechanical aptitude and I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to do traditional things in a new way. As the tools have grown and matured, so have I.

Sometime about the year 2000, while working at The Sells Agency (formerly Sells/Clark), Mike Sells pointed to the internet and said “This whole ‘internet’ thing might just catch on. Figure it out”.

So I did.

Or I tried anyway. I didn’t take to this quite as immediately as I did to print design with digital tools. The process of learning a new language didn’t come as naturally, but over time, it started to make sense and I began to learn how to bend the internet to my will. Again, as the tools have grown and matured, so have I.

When I left the Sells Agency in 2005, I called my friend and former creative partner Chip Culpepper at Mangan Holcomb Partners looking for a job. He said “I don’t have a position open, but I can probably send you some work”.

So he did.

And that’s how I came to open the Patrick Houston Design Studio. There was no business plan, no plan of any kind really, but it is something I had wanted to do for a long time but was too chicken to do.

Pretty soon, there were steady clients, good work being delivered and an extremely satisfying sense of accomplishment. I discovered that I enjoyed being responsible for my own destiny. The things I worried about when contemplating opening my own business proved to be manageable and even fun.

Six years later, through all the peaks and valleys, the Patrick Houston Design Studio is stronger than ever.  I have loose partnerships and affiliations with an outstanding group of people who provide services that I don’t, and as a result, have become part of a ‘virtual ad agency’ that that can match wits and match work with brick and mortar agencies many times our size.

As my business has grown, so have I.

I hope that when you are looking to hire a print designer or a web designer, that you’ll give me a call. I can provide agency quality work for far less than you’ll pay an ad agency.

While the tone of this website is at times whimsical and a little silly, I am deadly serious about doing high-quality work on behalf of my clients and I have a proven track record of success for clients large and small.

I hope to hear from you soon.

patrick
501.590.5321