You’re a Local or small business owner with a dream
You have an idea and a passion for your biz, and we are here for it one-hundred percent.
You also care about impacting your community, being creative, and being one of a kind. First off, samesies. Secondly, we see you, we get you, and we can’t wait to work with you.
Pair of Ducks Is a Digital-First Branding + Marketing Partner in Kalamazoo with Lots of Local Love
We call ourselves a micro studio (as in a team of three creative fabulists) using design and storycraft superpowers for the good of brandkind. Specializing in storytelling and bold branding, website design, and email marketing, we create to connect and to bring agency-level solutions to local businesses that we frequent and care about.
We feel strongly about the importance of local and independent businesses, the color, vibrancy, and one-of-a-kind offerings you share, and the small town charm that you help to create.
Our mission is to support local businesses and keep small town charm alive and well——in Kalamazoo, across Southwest Michigan, and anywhere honest, independent, fearless, one-of-a-kind businesses happen to be.
Our Skills + Experience At a Glance
30+ Combined years of top agency and boutique studio work for global CPG brands and small and midsize businesses
Forever fine artists trained in graphic design, illustration, sculpture, animation, and motion graphics
Experience across food and beverage, e-commerce, CPG, healthcare, software, and nonprofit markets
Passionate storytellers, script writers, movie buffs, and word nerds that love to fill plot holes and captivate an audience
10+ years experience in email marketing strategy, design, and development for national and global clients
Our POD is Small, but mighty
Staci Gibson
Staci Gibson is a creative professional with a megawatt talent for email marketing and brand narratives. She studied sculpture at Western Michigan University, earning a BFA degree. While in school, she sold scones and made tasty sandwiches, perfecting skills in custom lettering and sign making. After studying animation, she made an award-winning short cartoon called The Adventures of Justin and Staci (it even went to some film festivals!).
She then began work as a graphic designer for Biggs|Gilmore, which became part of VML, which then became VMLY&R. She met Pair of Ducks co-founder Derek Brouwer at VML, and the two of them went on to work as directors at Circa Creative Studios. Now she’s realizing a long-held dream of launching her own business: Pair of Ducks!
Staci is especially fond of scrappy local businesses, vegan recipes, stop motion animation, candle making, rosemary lattes, and eating breakfast outside.
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Fantastic Mr. Fox, It’s a Wonderful Life, Swiss Army Man
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Dangly, Ill-fitting
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Gene Hackman, Christian Bale, Kid Cudi, Becky Lynch
Derek Brouwer
Derek Brouwer is a design extraordinaire with a taste for maximalism and a background in account management. He earned a BS degree in Graphic Design with a minor in Art History (which he studied abroad in Italy, molto bene!) from Ferris State University.
Straight out of college, he began work at VML (now VMLY&R), a two-time Ad Age Agency to Watch winner with offices all over the globe. His partnership with Staci Gibson began there and the two have continued to work together ever since. They jumped ship together to hone their skills even further at Circa Creative Studios and now they’ve taken it to the next level by launching their own company, Pair of Ducks.
Derek is perhaps Earth’s biggest fan of eggs. He firmly believes that adding a fried or poached egg on top will instantly upgrade any dish. He is a Disney adult, a Nintendo diehard, a fan of contemporary artist/ nonagenarian Yayoi Kusama, has an ever-expanding card collection (trading cards, playing cards, lenticular postcards), and builds tricked-out gamer keyboards for fun.
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Manchego, Havarti
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Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Disney
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Johnny Unitas, Gary Cooper, Ishirō Honda, MrBeast
Justin Gibson
Justin Gibson is a writer and illustrator who loves absurd comedy, retro sci-fi (especially giant monster movies), breakfast cereal, and fancy root beers. He attended Western Michigan University where he double majored in Art and Creative Writing as an undergrad and from which he later received an MFA degree in Playwriting.
Some of his fondly-remembered achievements have included a weekly comic strip for WMU’s Western Herald, a six-episode stage play called Spacecano, and being president of the Western Film Society (twice). In addition to copywriting, he teaches a college writing course and serves as the graphic designer for South County News, a thriving small town newspaper. Oh, and he plays second banana to his nephew on a podcast called Ollie Pop.
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Speed Racer, The Incredible Shrinking Man, A Thousand Clowns, Rushmore
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Frozen orange juice concentrate
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Waylon Jennings, Ice Cube, Harry Nilsson, Helen Hunt
Check out some of our partnerships + Accreditations:
Tell Us What You’re Up To—We’d Love to Collab
What’s With The Name—
Pair of Ducks?!
There’s a lot of curiosity about our name, and from our perspective, that’s just how we like it. Here’s some backstory on how our name came to be:
Little kid Derek was in a performance of Pirates of Penzance, and at the end of the show, a friend’s aunt confessed confusion — why all the singing about “... a pair of ducks, a pair of ducks, a most ingenious pair of ducks!”? The lyrical misunderstanding went down in inside joke history, and Derek’s liked the phrase ever since.
This anecdote came up during a late night, let’s-name-our-business brainstorming session (naturally), and things just started to align.
Staci was one of those kids with a permanent stuffed animal sidekick. Hers was called Dilly Duck, except instead of one duck, she had two — a pair of ducks both called Dilly. One of them, Staci’s parents made her keep clean in the closet (Clean Dilly), and the other she dragged along with her practically everywhere, becoming thread-bare over the years (Dirty Dilly).
And, Wait! There’s More:
Ducks are yellow (our mutual favorite color).
They migrate in pairs (like we’ve done in our last two career moves).
They have webbed feet, and we make websites (pun for the win)!
A paradox is essentially a mash up of contradictory features or a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement. (Hey, we like all that, too!)
More Local/Small Business Love
