Rest Day Creative works to make community care the baseline of human interaction, one business, one brand at a time.
We want to live in a world where human wellbeing is a priority.
Full stop.
We’re only going to get closer to that world through interdependence — and if you’re wondering what this has to do with branding, we can appreciate your skepticism.
Branding presents at a surface level, but it’s not only surface level. It can translate what you care about, what you can offer to make that care real, and what you need in exchange to make that care sustainable for you to provide.
At its core, branding is a form of communication and trust-building that encourages exchange. We’ve all seen instances when the trust built doesn’t follow through, but when used intentionally, branding and foundational business systems amplify the messages you stand for, deepen the exchanges in your work, hold you positively accountable to your actions, and let you feel the full contribution of what you offer.
Whether you have a business or not, whether money changes hands or not, just by making it here we already know you have care worth offering and care worth receiving. Even if we’re not the ones to help you, we want more people to know about your talents and your tending.
A world with care like that at the forefront is the kind we want to build toward, and we need you in it.
Having a certain identity or profession is not a prerequisite for working with us.
Deeply caring about the state of the world and being curious about your place in it is.
A non-exhaustive list of people we want to and love to work with: artists, authors, creatives, therapists, activists, environmentalists, divergent thinkers, death doulas, weirdos, queers, dreamers, quiet revolutionaries, recovered people pleasers, and people who are sensitive both to a fault and as their greatest strength.
If we haven’t listed you here, show us what we’re missing.
Values backed by action.
Values are more than words, and they’re nothing without follow-through.
Wanting the world to be different and actually taking steps to make it so are not one and the same (though, damn, we really wish they were!).
To try to close that gap, we cross-reference everything we do with our values, from how we set expectations with you to how we interact as a team.
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Trust generates transformative change.
Trust forms when everyone involved can see what is happening. Where there's trust, there's safety, and where there's safety, creative expression is possible. Only with creativity can we imagine and then create the realities where equitable, mutually beneficial futures are the norm.
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Generosity is a renewable resource.
No one is more or less deserving to have more or less than we each do, and when we operate from a place of generosity, there can be a sense of relief and trust knowing that we are accountable to each other — not from a place of responsibility or obligation, but from a space of collective care. Mutual care makes space for the reality that no person operates on the exact same level every day, and together we don’t need to.
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The rough draft is our playground.
To get somewhere new, we have to give ourselves the opportunity to not know, to guess, to fuck up, to fail — and to play without fear of consequences while we do it. Because living under capitalist structures has realities and constraints we can’t always get around, anticapitalist efforts are inherently experimental. There’s no one right way, only the ways we try to live closer to our values, to our own minds and bodies, and to each other.
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Nervous systems come first.
When we base our work on systems and processes that prevent burnout and dismantle urgency, we acknowledge realities that already exist and make it possible to actually navigate those human inevitabilities. We create space to live within the work and recognize the humanity of the day-to-day for ourselves and each other. Anything less than that isn’t sustainable, and none of us are expendable. No profit is worth anyone’s pain.
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Enjoyment is our most-used metric.
Taking pleasure in what you have is the ultimate expression of enoughness, and enoughness is the antithesis of capitalist growth at all costs. We believe in growth with a purpose, and if that purpose isn’t bringing joy, then what is it for? Play is fundamental not because we’ve arrived somewhere that allows us to, but in spite of the fact that we haven’t.
Team Rest Day
Maggie Gentry
Intentional Thought Partner
she/her
Virgo-rising details-as-medicine
Maggie is a thought partner and anticapitalist business strategist whose focus is constructing real, humane, and deeply human systems based on your wants, needs, and heart-based beliefs. She lets loving curiosity lead the way, inviting you back to the core of your values in order to create systems of change with the truth-findings you uncover there. When she’s not co-conspiring with you, she’s losing count of how many floofs she’s booped on her cat Waffles, bonus-momming it up with her partner’s 10-year-old kiddo, and relishing in her second chance at love and life partnership in Austin, TX.
Iris Rankin
Values-Led Copywriter
they/them
Leo-rising heart excavation
Iris is an ethics-obsessed copywriter and project manager who can be found working on communications, online learning creation, and systems refinement here at Rest Day. Their mission is to foster values-led, human-first messaging and processes from the ground up by conjuring your felt sense into words that shift paradigms and really get at what aligns. When they're not behind the keyboard or tinkering behind the scenes, they love getting dirty hiking through the forests of Portland, OR, typing away at their queer nature rom-com book (non-binary/trans enemies-to-lovers), and murmuring sweet nothings to friends’ dogs in a borderline-embarrassing voice.
Rylee Paxton
Visionary Visual Designer
she/her
Libra-rising authenticity advocating
Rylee is an imperfection-as-art graphic and web designer who creates visual brand identities and site creation that gets the heart of what you do on the page without sacrificing the realness of what you feel. She translates your vision into visuals that center your human edges and your wholeness — flaws and all — as glorious pieces of you that need to be seen, understood, and celebrated. When she’s not following the lead of her latest doodle, Rylee can be seen in Los Angeles, CA at the park discussing her latest book club pick, throwing a perfectly imperfect clay mug at the ceramics studio, or splitting a bag of spicy watermelon Chilli Bombas with her bestie.
Rest Easy.
Sometimes work just feels like work, but we do think there are ways for it to feel more easeful more often. Same with living in general.
Our creative agency is named Rest Day because we want more of our workdays to feel like rest days: to be infused with moments of play, enjoyment, ease, and nourishment. You too?
Going deep and getting real still takes effort, but the concentrated work we do together in the short term builds in more ease in the long haul. More ease means being able to tend to what you care about outside of work without feeling like you have to make significant sacrifices to do it, and some of that tending can finally look like rest and play for you. Yes, please!
(Bonus? When we rest up, we have the energy stores we need to use resistance where it matters!)