Andi Reiber and Carolla Zap are avid horseback riders and motorcyclists—and good examples of the kinds of transplants that the Pittsburgh business community wants to keep in the region.
The young partners in Blue Rider Design Studio, founded by them in 1995 in a home office with a single computer, are native New Yorkers and high school friends who came to Pittsburgh in 1989 to study at Carnegie Mellon University. Both had job offers in New York after graduation, but decided instead to stay here to practice their craft in their own business.
“We’ve always known that we were going to do something that was art- and design-oriented,” says Zap, who concentrates on Web site design and construction, as well as multimedia projects.
Reiber and Zap say their approach is to combine design and technology in a way that describes precisely what the client does. Rather than overlay their own style on their clients’ image, they say they work with the client to understand what the business involves.
“Our style becomes the way we work with clients,” says Reiber, who focuses on marketing, concept development and print work for the firm.
Adds Zap: “What we don’t do is impose a Blue Rider design on the project.”
Ray Marano
