Inspiring Conversations with Raelina Krikston of The Stuudiio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Raelina Krikston.

Hi Raelina, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
They say that if there’s no risk, there’s no reward. It didn’t feel risky at the time to quit my job as a UX/UI designer and start a design agency specifically for the cannabis industry, but looking back it was a big leap to start something of my own with the experience I didn’t have. It was 2015 in Denver, and Colorado had just legalized cannabis for the recreational market. I believed that through good design, the stigma around cannabis could be squelched for the average mainstream consumer and I set out to do just that. Easy, right?

In retrospect, and compared to the straight and narrow path, it was certainly risky. I thought cannabis needed and deserved to be showcased in a way that was high-class, sophisticated, and free of the stigma associated with the plant up until that point. And thankfully I wasn’t alone in my thinking. I put myself out there, and by the grace of being an early mover and shaker in the scene, I quickly started making connections and getting small clients in the cannabis and CBD space.

This journey took me to California and before I knew it I had spent nearly six months in my aunt and uncle’s mother-in-law’s unit DIYing studio shots, making packaging designs, branding clients and slowly being called further and further north in my work, all the way to Humboldt County.

By this time, it was post-election 2016 and we had just got hit with the double whammy of Tr*mp being elected AND cannabis being legalized for the recreational market. The next three years was a bit of a whirlwind of potential projects, dedicated clients, events, figuring out how to scale my business, all the while trying to navigate the ever-changing cannabis regulations. Packaging requirements were up in the air, no one, not even the regulatory bodies knew what was going on. Things were changing all the time, it was a tornado of activity, but it taught me an important lesson: you gotta stay in the center to be centered. Just like the eye of a storm, being in the middle of all the activity made things a lot more clear and prepped me mentally in dealing with change and uncertainty.

In 2019 I made the decision to make some changes in my company and expand into other industries rather than being exclusively focused on cannabis and CBD. The Stuudiio was official February 13th, 2020 and I was looking forward to hosting people in my studio doing rentals and hosting a community-focused creator space. I think you might know where this was going…

So far, I’m happy I made the choice to diversify and have the opportunity to work with different industries. It keeps things fresh for me. We still work with many CBD and cannabis companies, as well as natural beauty, skincare, and most recently educational games and videography! I use my studio to create content including photo shoots and video shoots and although the option to rent it out still exists, we don’t rely on that for our business, it’s more of a way to offer something to the local creative community.

I’m proud to say that my company works with clients as far away as Brisbane, Australia (rubymarybotanicals.com), Humboldt County (witchinthewoodsbotanicals.com), Los Angeles as well as new exciting ventures coming up every day. Check out funfactco.com to get a sneak peek at the newest brand we’re working on.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Starting a company in the very beginning of the pandemic certainly wasn’t in my plans, but it offered some benefits that I never would have expected. Up until then, I had been entirely self-funded, so the pandemic relief money made a HUGE difference in getting my business up and rolling right at a time when everyone was that much more cognizant about their online presence.

Being self-employed isn’t all rainbows and butterflies of course, it’s feast or famine, which if frustrating to say the least, but it teaches you how to be resilient and how to plan for the future in the best way. I don’t sweat it too much when work slows down in the summer and winter, instead I’ve made self-started projects to emphasize the benefits of my community and support myself and my team at the some time.

The Humboldt Passport and Solstice Pop-Up Holiday Market are my company’s projects which work to uplift our community and fill in times of the year that might otherwise be slow. The Passport, simply put is a sexy coupon book of curated business that offers a way to experience Humboldt County through the lens of food and drink. We emphasize food, libations, coffee and cannabis to introduce visitors to the bounty Humboldt offers. The passport runs from June to September and gives us the opportunity to connect with the businesses who are the best of the best and most importantly, eat lots of great food. It all culminated with a farm to table dinner using farm-fresh produce picked by our team and the guest chef, Yana Gibuena, who put on a traditional Kamayan dinner using all Humboldt ingredients.

In the wintertime, The Stuudiio hosts a pop-up shop to showcase the best that Humboldt County has to offer. We curate the vendors to emphasize well-made and well-designed products that have a certain feel you can’t find too easily in a remote location like Humboldt. Check out the shop at solsticepopup.com

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Stuudiio?
The Stuudiio is a full-service creative agency that focuses on educational marketing, minimalist, bauhaus style design, and having fun while doing it.

We believe in a world in which commercial art is more than advertisements but a call to action. The Stuudiio works with companies large and small that are interested in social change, protecting the planet, and having a good time. We reject “the grind” and instead work to master “the flow.” Join us in the journey.

Marketing | Content Creation | Branding & Identity | Creative Agency & Representation | Go-Getters

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
As I’ve gotten older, I understand more and more how completely un-fucking-inhibited I was as a younger entrepreneur. And thank goodness for it. If I was more practical, I probably would have never started my own company. Sometimes I long for a stable weekly paycheck, but the flexibility that owning my own business allows me is refreshing and at this point necessary for me to be able to maintain a productive creative practice. It’s not sustainable for me to be creating 24/7, so being able to reset, reflect and be able to rest and gather creative inspiration has been invaluable to me being able to continue creating good work.

I enjoy the hustle, the thrill of “the chase” of engaging with potential clients and prospects, and at this point, having a steady paycheck isn’t mutually exclusive to owning a business, it just comes with a lot more responsibility.

All in all, risk taking is healthy, it allows us the opportunity to push ourselves and grow in new directions. The trick is to find a healthy balance between stability and risk. The older I get, the more I learn how to dance between those two extremes and love every minute of it.

Pricing:

• Branding: Starts at $25,000
• Photography Day Rates: Start at $1000/day
• Studio Rental: $250/90 minutes
• Packaging Design: Starts at $5000/SKU

Contact Info:

• Website: thestuudiio.com
• Instagram: @thestuudiio
• Facebook: facebook.com/thestuudiio