Judy Hughes is the founder and Director of JYZ Design, a boutique creative agency based out of Calgary’s historic Devenish building on 17th Avenue that specializes in making people fall in love with a place, product, or brand before they’ve ever set foot in it. A lifelong artist whose canvas evolved from paint to Adobe, Figma, and cinematic media production, Judy built JYZ as a deliberate alternative to the churn of traditional agencies, a place where hospitality brands, luxury resorts, and home builders get a dedicated creative team that takes the time to truly understand their vision.
What is your business called and what does it do?
JYZ Design is a creative agency that builds the digital world before the physical one. We craft the stories, visuals, and experiences that people fall in love with before they ever arrive, check in, walk through the doors, or hold a product in their hands. Through cinematic media production, websites, branding, and digital strategy, we help hospitality, home builder, and consumer brands become destinations long before they’re experienced.
What made you want to do this work?
I’ve always been an artist. It began with a paintbrush, and over time that canvas evolved into brands, websites, films, and digital experiences. Much of our team shares the same story–our creative medium simply became Adobe, Figma, cameras, or lines of HTML and CSS instead of paint.
What problem did you want to solve with the business?
I started my career in agencies where success was measured by speed and volume. While I learned a tremendous amount, I realized the most meaningful creative work couldn’t be rushed. I wanted to build something different: a boutique agency where clients could partner with a dedicated creative team that truly understood their vision and had the technical expertise to bring it to life with intention and precision.
Today, we have the privilege of translating the stories of extraordinary places, products, and communities into experiences that are felt before they’re ever experienced. Whether it’s a luxury resort, a new neighbourhood, or a product on a shelf, our role is to create the first impression–to tell stories in a way that is instantly understood, impossible to scroll past, and memorable long after the screen goes dark.
Who are your clientele/demographics?
We partner with brands that create experiences people remember for a lifetime. Luxury resorts, boutique hotels, visionary home builders, destination marketers, and premium consumer brands trust us to tell their stories. Our clients include Kananaskis Nordic Spa, Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge, Clique Hotel & Resorts, Centron Group, and Explore Kananaskis. We become an extension of their team through website development, media production, brand strategy, and ongoing creative partnerships that continue long after launch.
How does your business make money? How does it work?
Our business operates through a combination of project-based work and long-term creative retainers.
Projects include brand development, website design and development, media production, and campaign launches. Once that foundation is built, many of our clients continue with us on monthly retainers, where we become an extension of their marketing team–creating content, managing websites, producing campaigns, optimizing SEO, and evolving their brand as they grow.
We’ve built our own business much the same way we build our clients’. Nearly all of our growth has come through word of mouth and industry-leading SEO. We rarely rely on outbound sales because our work speaks for itself.
Where in the city can we find your profession?
Our home is a creative studio on Calgary’s 17th Avenue in the historic Devenish building, but you’ll rarely find us sitting still. One day we’re filming sunrise over a lakeside beach, the next we’re capturing the final details of a luxury hotel. Inspiration is our office.
What is the best question a prospective customer could ask a member of your profession when comparing services? Give the answer as well.
Question: “Would you actually be a customer of our brand?”
Answer: It’s a simple question, but it reveals everything. The best creative work comes from genuine understanding, not assumptions. If your agency naturally embodies your audience–or deeply understands how they think, what inspires them, and what influences their decisions–they’ll create work that feels authentic instead of manufactured.
At JYZ Design, our team is made up of young innovators, trendsetters, travellers, photographers, and digital natives. We don’t just market experiences–we seek them out ourselves. That perspective allows us to create brands that resonate with the people they’re meant to reach, because in many cases, we’re speaking to people just like us. We believe the strongest creative partnerships happen when your agency doesn’t just understand your customer–they are your customer.
What is the best part about what you do? What is the worst part?
The best part is watching months of invisible work become something tangible. There’s something incredibly rewarding about driving past a billboard you designed, launching an intricate website you’ve obsessed over for months, or holding a product in your hands that once existed only as sketches and ideas. Creative work spends so much of its life behind screens that seeing it come to life in the real world never loses its magic.
The hardest part has been learning to protect the value of our work–particularly as a female-led business. Recently, we had one client who requested services well beyond the contracted deliverables. When we explained that the additional work would require a change in scope, they responded by filing a chargeback. We had to spend weeks compiling documentation and evidence of every completed deliverable before ultimately winning the dispute. It was stressful, but it reinforced an important lesson: we remain unapologetically clear about our scopes, pricing, and boundaries, because protecting our team’s expertise allows us to continue delivering our very best work.
What is your favourite joke about your own profession?
“Can you just make it pop?” – Every creative brief, ever.
Where can we follow you?
PAY IT FORWARD: What is another local business that you love?
We are biased, but obsessed with visiting Kananaskis Nordic Spa for a recharge.
