Inspiring Conversations with Alexandra Alcantara and Crystal Green of Ruby and Citrine

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra Alcantara and Crystal Green.

Alexandra and Crystal, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Alex: Crystal and I met in 2015 when we had both recently moved down from the New York area. At the time, Crystal was at another agency and I was working as a full-time freelancer. We hit it off after a few work encounters and kept in contact until June 2019 when Crystal left her agency to become a full-time freelancer. I had just recently had my son and wanted to get out of my home office for a little while each day to get some more work done. We decided to try out a small office at Industrious, a co-working space located downtown in Charter Square.

Crystal: We LOVED it! And we loved working side by side, although at the time we hadn’t formed anything yet. It was so nice to have each other’s backs when things were getting very busy. As we are both presentation designers it was also nice to have another person to talk nerdy and technical with.

Alex: After a few months, we started thinking about getting serious and putting something small together. By December 2019, we decided that we liked the idea enough to make it real, and Ruby + Citrine became official in January 2020.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Alex: Well, since we had the great idea of starting a business in 2020 (oh gosh!) it was destined to be a bit bumpy. The first waves of news about COVID were drifting overseas, and we still had quite a few live events coming up. Little by little, things started to fall off of our calendars and that portion of our business took a major hit. We were fortunate enough to have had the forethought to save some money personally while we waited to see how the world reacted. We also had already done so much work remotely that we already had systems in place for smooth workflow and virtual event space. We also (with Crystal’s due diligence!) were one of the recipients of the first wave of PPP loans for small businesses, so that was extremely helpful in keeping us afloat those first few months. We knew that this was an opportunity to get additional help started while we waited on news of openings. We ended up hiring another designer, Andrew Bradley, in March 2020, and we just added Annie Fernandez to our team in early May 2021.

Crystal: Yes, starting a new business just before a pandemic caused many businesses to shut down entirely was a situation we never anticipated. And as Alex said, we definitely took a hit in the beginning. We used to travel quite a bit to work on meetings and shows all over the country and even internationally, but with travel restrictions and shutdowns came cancellations, and we really needed to refocus our efforts on working in the virtual space. Making the decision to bring Andrew on board during that tumultuous time was a huge risk, but with great risk comes great return, and we are so glad we did it — he’s very talented and has made many fantastic contributions to our team.

Also, running and growing a business is hard work! Most of our clients come to us by referral/word of mouth, but we recently began investing some time and money into traditional advertising.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Alex: Our agency specializes in presentations and graphic design. We have extensive backgrounds in live events and production so it was a natural place to grow some roots in. We’re known primarily for our expertise in PowerPoint. It’s a powerful program and can be used in many ways, and we are trying to educate others about its capabilities. Our design skills combined with our technical know-how in PowerPoint really set us apart. Presentation software can be used for so much more than bullets on a slide. With PowerPoint’s interactivity and animation capabilities, we can create tools that are both stunning and functional.

We’re also traditionally trained graphic designers that can handle everything from logos to business cards to landing pages to packaging design and more.

Crystal: We believe it’s important to hire a presentation designer to handle presentation work, as there is more that goes into designing effective and engaging slides than one would think. You wouldn’t hire an architect to design a car, right? Most graphic designers are working in programs like Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, and rightfully so — it’s how they were trained and what they are most comfortable using (and they are the industry standard!). But designing a presentation in InDesign ultimately means you’re stuck placing images of slides into PowerPoint, and then the end client loses out on editability — and the neat functions of PowerPoint, like animation. We use programs like Illustrator in conjunction with PowerPoint to create slides that look great but can also be edited on the fly.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Alex: Our ability to be “chameleons.” We have worked with many different companies and agencies, both in our former roles and with Ruby + Citrine, so we have seen a lot of different styles in a wide range of industries. We also adapt to these different styles with ease. In some cases, a new client will provide us with just a logo and ask us to design an entire presentation with nothing else to go on — these are some of our favorite projects!

Crystal: Our experiences have allowed us to become knowledgeable not only on the design side but on the technical side too. We can come up with creative solutions for different needs, all while keeping function and editability in mind.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: http://www.rubyandcitrine.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rubyandcitrine/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rubyandcitrine

Image Credits
Mark Pagano