Carissa Lytle is a marketer-turned-designer who loves creating infographics because of the way they beautifully meld typography, illustration, and design. She studied marketing at DePaul University and visual communication design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before starting out on her own as a freelance graphic designer. Fast forward fifteen years and she now owns the award-winning, full-service design firm Right Angle Studio. Alongside her husband, Patrick—a former Chief Marketing Officer—the pair balance creative insight and marketing know-how to run their business like a well-oiled machine. When they aren’t collaborating on their clients’ latest project, you can find them enjoying their free time with their four young daughters in the picturesque lakefront town of Highland Park on Chicago’s North Shore.

Jara Kern tapped her entrepreneurial streak as a kindergartner, when she wrote to Hasbro with the idea for a new line of My Little Pony toys, accompanied by names, marketing copy, and detailed illustrations. While she’s moved on from My Little Ponies, her knack for organizing ideas and expressing them in sparkling copy has stayed with her—and helped her nurture a thriving career. When she’s not strategizing or writing, you’ll find her running trails or learning about birds and bugs with her three children. She holds a degree in music performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.