Conversations with Hunter Hall

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hunter Hall.

Hi Hunter, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up taking hikes with my dad and spending a lot of time outside in the WNC Mountains, in Brevard, NC. My dad is a wildlife biologist and forester, so naturally our time together included long, confusing, Latin words for plants and animals and conversations about indigenous and invasive species. His passion for the environment led me to a life-long interest in preserving our incredible public lands and the special ecosystems within them.

On the other hand, I’m a creative graphic designer with a strong entrepreneurial spirit. I started my first “business” when I was 14, selling random things from my house on eBay. As you can predict, that did not turn out too well when I told my parents I had sold our music speakers without their permission. Since then, I’ve been more focused and intentional with my endeavors. I had a yard business with one of my good friends for a summer until we realized we didn’t want to do labor intensive work every day. I also started a social media advertising company and realized that business model did not fit my strengths as a person. All of this to say, my failures have led me to my successes.

Visterra Designs is an intersection between my passion for the outdoors and my skills as a graphic designer. Throughout the years, I’ve noticed a specific niche of people who are extremely fond of our public lands and even add all visiting all 62 parks to their bucket list. However, a lot of the national park products out there focus on the quintessential landscapes and top landmarks within these parks. I wanted to bring a product to market that paid respects to public parks in their entirety, so I decided to design maps that highlight a lot of the trails, campsites, landmarks, interesting ecological structures, and hidden gems within these parks. I also wanted to make sure that my efforts would in turn benefit the National Park Service and their current projects, so I give a portion of my profits back to the National Park Foundation every year.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
This has not been a smooth road. It is tricky to penetrate the market in e-commerce when you have a niche product such as Visterra Designs map prints. I’ve had to find creative ways to get my maps in front of people who really want these things.

Initially I used a lot of my resources for social media campaigns and advertisements. The return on investment just wasn’t there for the type of campaigns I was doing and audiences I was targeting.

Another hurdle has been actually maintaining product quality through shipping. That’s right, shipping large pieces of paper and making sure they maintain they’re form and color from the print shop is challenging. I’ve found creative ways to ship art to customers that maintain my high quality standards.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As I mentioned before, I’ve been a graphic designer for the past 10 years of my life. In my professional career, I’ve specialized in building visual brand identities from logo designs, to brand style guides, to website design, and all the way to help brands design interiors of their physical store or restaurant environments.

I would say I am proud to be a recipient of the Platinum Herem Creative Award for a company brand identity I developed. But my proudest moments have been from helping small businesses find their value proposition and align that with a brand identity that sets them up for success. I love helping small businesses define their vision and bring their products or services to market. That’s what led me to become an MBA student at NC State.

In my person life, I’ve always loved finding ways to communicate things visually that would have been hard or impossible to communicate with just words. Visterra, which means “vision” and “territory”, seeks to visual show people the totality of our national parks and a lot of the aspects that go into preserving these lands.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
“How I Built This” Podcast “The Daily” Podcast
“Daring Greatly” – Book by Brene Brown

Any National Park Books

Personal:
“I Am Malala” – Biography of Malala Yousefi
“Planet Money” – Podcast

Pricing:

• 8″x12″ prints are $19.99
• 12″x18″ prints are $28.99
• 24″x36″ prints are $45.00
• Blue Ridge Parkway Print Series starts at $29.99

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.visterradesigns.com
• Instagram: @visterradesigns
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/visterradesigns

Image Credits
All from me!