South Lake Tahoe business rises to closure challenges

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Many South Lake Tahoe businesses have been impacted by closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic but one business, Rise Designs, has worked on sharing their designs with other local enterprises through their "Tahoe is My Happy Place" campaign.

Mike Miller and Marley Reel, coowners of the 13-year-old business that specializes in screenprinting custom hats and shirts with artwork for many local businesses and groups. They do projects with a customer's artwork or help them with it. They also recently created the City of South Lake Tahoe's new logo.

Miller and Reel also use nature-inspired art on a lot of their self-produced hats and shirts.

When the pandemic closed all non-essential businesses, their work stopped and the pair said they wanted to give back to the community and help all local businesses survive during these trying times.

The Tahoe Is My Happy Place project creates free artwork for all types of businesses around town. Not knowing when they would get busy again, Reel and Miller sat down and made a list of businesses, then created logos for them in the Rise Design style. The company then gave it to the business for no charge, letting them know it could be used as they wished. It can be used for promotion on social media, ads, hung on the wall, or even make something with it.

"We wanted to help out while staying relevant in people's minds," said Reel. "We don't know when business will pick up again."

So far Rise Designs has created 15 logos and shared them with owners, including Overland Meats, Lake Tahoe AleWorx, Rah Hair Studio, Bert's, and Ernie's.

"We have had really good feedback so far," said Reel.

"We wanted to give shoutouts to local businesses through the designs," added Reel of their Tahoe is My Happy Place artwork.

Custom shirts, stickers, hats, and other products can be created with those free logos, or, the business just uses the logo for whatever they like.

Both Miller and Reel were Tahoe "ski bums" and started a side business when not on the slopes. That side business is now their career and they moved from that garage to a shop in Meyers and now in their new location on James Avenue in South Lake Tahoe.

They have created a video of their Tahoe is My Happy Place project (see attached)

If any businesses are interested and want to participate, contact them at info@risegraphics.com.