Breathtaking design, delicious baked goods, and an unmatched dedication to creating beautiful work can exist in one business. And it does. Haley Cash is the “Starving Artist” behind it all.
The Starving Artist is a creative agency and home bakery passionate about creating, from logos and brand identities to cakes and cookies. Whether she’s in the kitchen or working with a blank Adobe canvas, Haley is a creative problem solver that brings ideas to life.
“I love beautiful things,” Haley said. “It is such a special process to help people put a beautiful product out into the world.”
The Starving Artist is an independent contractor passionate about helping clients tell their story through beautiful design and making quality homemade goods that can turn any bad day around.
While The Starving Artist didn’t officially launch until November of 2019, Haley has been doing this work professionally for nearly seven years. Incredibly driven and fiercely talented, Haley graduated from Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, at just 19 years old.
After graduating from Belhaven, Haley stayed in Jackson for three years where she gained experience working at a full-service marketing agency and the Mississippi Development Authority. That’s also where she met her husband, Andy. As Haley lovingly puts it, she “lost the location battle” and moved to Waco when Andy accepted a job here.
While Haley didn’t expect to end up in Waco, she’s incredibly thankful she did. She expresses that the creative community here is uniquely generous. During her time in Waco, Haley has found that the creatives here are people who readily offer their guidance, ideas, resources and inspiration to help one another succeed instead of trying to beat others out.
“The wonderful thing about Waco is there’s such a strong community of entrepreneurs here who want to help without it being an intellectual property issue. Everyone is willing to give advice or collaborate in any way they can,” Haley said.
That willingness to give and accept advice has been an important part of Haley’s journey. Other designers have been incredibly impactful for her, enabling her to toss around ideas and aiding in her never-ending hunger to learn new things.
As a creative contractor, there are always new skills to be learned. While Haley’s experience has allowed her to learn a wide variety of design and marketing skills, she knows that it’s important to rely on others with specialties she doesn’t have.
“I’m trained as a graphic designer, and that is what I do best, but over time and through different working experiences, I realized that certain processes were lacking,” Haley explained. “I wanted to create a solution that would benefit my clients and produce great work, and I quickly learned that meant purposefully selecting the right people to help get the job done,” she continued.
Haley begins every project by digesting its scope, formulating a strategic plan, and carefully selecting partners and team members to meet the needs of the project. She works with all kinds of partners from marketing strategists to web developers and copywriters. Haley stresses that pausing to develop a plan and carefully choosing the right team members is crucial to the project’s success.
“Entrepreneurs are generally high risk-takers, which is great, but sometimes it’s important to invest the time to lay a solid foundation,” Haley said.
In addition to laying a solid foundation at the start, Haley firmly believes in constant evaluation.
“There’s an importance in evaluating all the time. You may find that taking one step back to look at the big picture is what you need to move three steps forward,” Haley said.
Haley advises aspiring entrepreneurs in our community to lay that solid foundation, evaluate themselves often, and be fluid in letting their vision change. In fact, she’s currently in the process of doing that for herself as The Starving Artist is in the midst of a rebrand.
Moving forward, Haley is excited to continue finding more efficient ways to complete the projects she loves. She’s also looking forward to the completion of her kitchen renovation this summer, which will bring with it a fresh batch of baked goods that’ll leave your mouth watering.
Learn more about how The Starving Artist can meet your creative needs at thestarvingartistcreative.com.