The Chicago skyline from Montrose Harbor, along the Uptown lakefront. Photo: John Picken / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Isabelle Pantazis was making things long before she had a job title for it. As a child she cut magazines into collages and took photographs, and in school she studied fine arts with a concentration in graphic design.
Most of what she knows, though, she picked up on the job. Over more than a decade she has worked for a wide range of clients across branding, logos, websites and print. In 2009 she started her own studio, Hello Belle Studio, built around telling the stories of entrepreneurs, small businesses, creative people and nonprofits.
No one-size approach
The studio’s working premise is that design can’t be templated. Pantazis starts by getting to know a client and its audience, then builds a solution for that project specifically. For small businesses in particular, she treats each job as handmade work meant to move a concrete goal forward. Her own taste runs toward careful detail and simplicity.
Among her recent projects was the design of a neighborhood guide to Uptown, a printed piece that pulls together local businesses, landmarks and history for residents and visitors.
Why Uptown
Pantazis and her husband settled in Uptown for its roomy apartments, its cultural and architectural history, its transit connections and its closeness to the park and the beach. Away from work, she walks her 90-pound mastiff, Fiona, on the lakefront trail, gardens, cooks and collaborates with other artists. She collects vintage cookbooks and counts the chorizo tacos at Carmela’s among her neighborhood weaknesses.
She also turns up at local events focused on community building, which she sees as a natural extension of what she does for clients. Her philosophy, professionally and otherwise, is to stay open to new opportunities, on the theory that there is no telling who you will meet or what you will learn.
Linh Tran-Whitaker covers Argyle Street, dining and community life.
