I’ve personally witnessed Smiley Graphix grow from a grin to a full-blown ear-to-ear smile. The business was started by John Ingles and originally he was doing freelance logo and graphic design part time for businesses while working at Multi-Ad and he also worked on my magazine, People of Peoria.

John met De at Multi-Ad, the two got married, had two kids and in the late ’90’s De started to drive the Smiley Graphix business in new directions. They’ve now parked and set up their own studio in the historic Warehouse District in downtown Peoria.

Having seen this business grow through the years I wanted to stop by and take a tour of the new studio and of course that meant that I should also take cake. It’s what I do!

Next stop…Trefzger’s Bakery!

Here we are at the “Let Them Eat Cake” Headquarters, Trefzger’s Bakery in Peoria Heights.

And there she is, Kayla, the MBIP official cake artist!

She’s looking beautiful as always and check out the Smiley Graphix Studio cake she created! Wonderful work as always, Kayla, thanks so much!

Now let’s zoom to downtown. Zoom, zoom…

Zoom! This is the place, 820 SW Adams in the Warehouse District.

Check out the name on the door, very cool! They’re located in Suite C, let’s go in and find the new studio of Smiley Graphix!

The studio is located within The Nest Coworking space. Going through all these doors makes me feel like Maxwell Smart!

Okay, there’s the door to Smiley Graphix Studio, let’s go in and see what’s happening in there.

There’s two familiar faces, John and De Ingles, the driving forces of Smiley Graphix!

De’s holding their little dog, Marty. Yep, they named their dog after me, I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not…but I’ll go ahead and take it as one! I just hope I’m not barking up the wrong tree here. Oof, that was ruff. Okay, I’ll stop now.

As I mentioned in the introduction, John started the business out doing freelance logos, graphics and illustrations. In 1997, De started moving the business in a new direction and today they’ve expanded and their services that they offer now include: Brand Strategy, Logo Design, Website Development and Application Development.

De explained that their goal is to build brands for companies that do good. This includes working with companies that are making sustainable products, helping other people and ones that are eco-friendly and give back to the community in some way.

John is working on building software that helps children learn while having fun.

They’ve also launched a product line of stickers and graphic t-shirts based on the doing good theme and we’ll see those soon. But now it’s time for…

Cake!

John and De loved the cake that Kayla made and they were very surprised because I didn’t tell them I was bringing it.

Check out the kitchen area that they have built right into the wall! Very futuristic!

John did the honor of cutting the cake while De took a picture for their Instagram account.

As you can see, John loved the cake! It was delicious as always!

Here’s a few of the stickers and t-shirts from the line that they are launching. They plan on expanding this line to children’s clothing, camping gear and drink wear. The line is based on things that make life rich: Friends, family, nature and mixing the two whenever possible.

This whole line and the idea behind it was sparked on a five week trip through 19 national and state parks.

You can purchase the stickers and t-shirts at Urban Artifacts and Peoria Made. They’ll soon be added to the Smiley Graphix Studio website as well.

Art talent runs in De’s family. That’s a painting that she did and the photo below is a wooden sculpture of a Pelican carved by De’s Dad, Rich. They’re donating it to the new Ronald McDonald House in Peoria.

Other artists are represented at the Smiley Graphix Studio. Those bunny stickers are made and designed by Kelly Kimball from Inknoor Art and the green fellow is from Jeff Carlson’s Mani-Yack line. De made the sticker in the lower left for one of their clients, Nick ’n Willy’s pizza. It’s based on their vintage artwork from the ’90’s.

The Tom Hanks Rockford Peaches illustration is by local artist, Jeremy Berkley.

The glass sculpture light fixture that hangs overhead is made from test pieces from a glass installation at a local health care provider. That antique clock on the wall keeps very accurate time…twice a day.