By line Kristin Guess
AMES, Iowa – Ella Janssen’s entrepreneurial journey began at a young age. Growing up outside the city limits of West Des Moines, she would come home from school and spend hours crafting “anything and everything.” Captivated with bringing her ideas to life, she began sculpting her own mini creations out of clay and designing packaging for each one. She enjoyed it so much, she decided to turn her passion into a profession – and she’s done just that at Iowa State University.
After graduating from Valley High School in 2022, Janssen enrolled into Iowa State’s College of Design to study graphic design. Within days of arriving on campus, she knew she’d found the right place. Armed with an artistic precision she’d cultivated for years, Janssen unleashed her creativity in the classroom. As her confidence grew, her work took on a life of its own. She entered a campus pitching competition and won, empowering her to launch her own business.
“I realized this creative part of me that was always just a hobby, was way more important than I thought,” she said.
Right place, right time
In the fall of 2024, Janssen enrolled in the graphic design practicum taught by Patrick Finley, Professor in Charge of Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the College of Design. With a focus on bringing industry into the classroom, Finley’s theme for the semester was beverage and consumer products.
Assignments were built around real clients, real deadlines and real-world expectations. Guest speakers from major national brands, including Samuel Adams and Angry Orchard, joined the class to share their own branding journeys and industry insights.
One project in particular grabbed Janssen’s attention. Finley had partnered with the Midwest Grape and Wine Industry Institute at Iowa State, which maintains a range of shared facilities for hands-on work in wine, beer, cider and food science. Brew lab co-directors Robert Brown, Anston Marston Distinguished Professor in Mechanical Engineering, and Erin Norton, director of the Midwest Grape and Wine Industry Institute, were looking for help with branding and design for the brewery’s beer can labels.
“All of the students really took to heart the objectives of this assignment and it shows in their work,” Finley said. “They listened, collaborated, solved real problems and saw the impact of their design decisions — all skills no hypothetical assignment can fully teach.”
Norton, who also oversees the winery and cidery, wanted the branding for all three entities to appear as siblings of each other. The students came up with thousands of designs that went through an intense refining process and eventually were reduced to only a few. One design immediately stood out to Norton: an organic tree with branches that reached through a window along with the landmark campus campanile. It was the result of a group project with Janssen.
“This design really did represent the Iowa State campus well, which is such a big part of this brand. We wanted the students to be involved the entire way through the process and they were. We are very pleased,” Norton said.
Noticing how Janssen effortlessly could switch between styles, Norton hired her and another graphic design student to continue refining the beverage branding beyond the classroom.
“She’s super creative but also really delivers to what a client wants,” Norton said.
Finding her niche
Janssen’s love for package and beverage design was growing stronger with each project, solidifying her niche in industrial design.
“It takes graphic design and pushes it to a whole new level. It becomes industrial design too. Instead of just focusing on flat designs, it’s about telling a story through shape and texture and creating a physical experience. I find it very rewarding,” Janssen said.
From creating and branding her own toy creations, Janssen was now designing for products that would eventually appear on store shelves. She began acquiring clients interested in her work and in the summer of 2024 decided to start her own business. She was accepted into cohort 10 of the competitive CYstarters program in 2025 and spent the summer building her design studio, Monologue, from the ground up in what she calls a “transformational” time. Within weeks, she’d clarified her services, built a social media presence, and by the end of the summer, launched her website.
In just a few years, Janssen has collected an impressive list of awards across regional, national and international competitions. Her work for the cidery and brewery earned gold and silver in the University and College Designers Association Annual Design Awards, top recognition from the Graphic Design USA American Package Design Awards and multiple awards of excellence from the Art Director’s Association of Iowa Exhibition.
She also received honors for projects including a skincare brand, an avantgarde poster and a “Winnie the Pooh” book design. Her entrepreneurial accomplishments have been recognized as well, with several first and second place awards across the Iowa State pitch competitions, a finalist position in the Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards, and nominations for both the Harry Watts Scholarship and the Janice Peterson Anderson Senior Award in Design from the College of Design’s graphic design department.
“It really was the projects in Patrick’s class that gave me the confidence to go out, do professional work and officially launch my own design business,” she said.
Full-circle moment
After completing the final packaging and label systems for ISU’s beverages last fall, Janssen finally saw the products stocked on shelves at Cyclone Liquors in Ames — though not for long. The ciders sold out almost immediately — and she found herself reassured in the direction she was heading.
“Just a couple years ago I said it was my dream to someday walk into a store and see my designs on a shelf. I never could have imagined it would happen just two years later,” Janssen said. In just the past year and a half, she has completed work for six clients across eight projects and surpassed $20,000 in revenue.
“I’m always working to strengthen my process and system, and the funds I receive help me to be able to do so,” she said. Following graduation in May, Janssen plans to move to Austin, Texas, where she’ll run her business full time.
“I’ve been blessed with so many incredible opportunities over the past year and a half, and I really look forward to building my business into what I know it can be,” she said. “My ultimate goal is to do what I love every day. And I’m beyond blessed to say that goal is well within reach.”
