Rhonda Negard
Owner, Brand Designer, Web Designer, & WordPress Front-End Developer
Your Website Should Reduce Your Workload, Not Add to It.
Most founders treat their website as a marketing surface. You treat it as a core business system. At Fat Dog Creatives, we design websites that replace vigilance with structure, producing reliable output instead of storing fragile information. We eliminate the cognitive load that comes with managing content, so your team can publish with confidence, scale complexity without entropy, and trust the system instead of working around it. If your website is part of your operation, it should behave like one.
Why Fat Dog Creatives
People ask about the name. Is it a commentary on my diet? My fitness goals? No.
Why Fat Dog Creatives
People ask about the name. Is it a commentary on my diet? My fitness goals? No.
It’s an homage to my husky mix pup, Shiner (whose spots are represented by the spots in the logo), my shepherd mix pup, Zacky (who was, admittedly, a bit "sturdy"), and a nod to that Friends episode where Monica’s nickname was "Big Fat Goalie." I'm a trivia and board game lover, so I mixed all of my favorite things up into one business name and icon. I wanted a name that sounded like a person you’d actually want to grab a drink with at The Pearl or ice cream in Helotes.
Fat Dog Creatives is professional, but we don't wear ties (well, Clizby wears bowties but for fun). We’re easy to work with, we’re happy to be here, and we’ve been doing this since 2003.
The Fat Dog Philosophy
Most web designers treat a website like a brochure. I treat it like a Sales Funnel.
Empathy First
We figure out what keeps your customers awake at night.
Design Thinking
We build a path that leads them from "just looking" to "take my money."
Local Authority
We optimize your digital presence so that when someone in Selma or Helotes searches for your services, you are the answer.
Origins of Fat Dog Creatives
The Founder, Rhonda Negard
MA & BA in Communications
The Normal Way
You and your business are my passion. Helping you create and communicate the brand your clients will love makes my heart happy. After all, your success leads to mine!
The Stuffy Way
A brand and Web strategist and designer with more than 20 years of experience in visual communications, Rhonda Negard and her company Fat dog Creatives help executives turned entrepreneurs transform their mindset and that of their former colleagues' so that they can effectively tap into their established networks and grow. She is a multi-faceted designer putting empathy into practice in her personal and professional life, including brand strategy, user experience and web design to make real connections for her clients with the people who need them most.
A creative and proactive problem-solver, her signature friendliness and enthusiasm enable her to develop strong relationships with all levels of management and government. She has a collaborative leadership style that more than 150 businesses have enjoyed, and they benefited from her expertise to position and promote their uniqueness and goals.
A native of Texas, Rhonda has since traveled the United States and Europe before returning to her beloved home state. Rhonda has a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Communications. Her past and on-going research has focused on the effects of color on memory and cultural associations. She's shared her expertise in communications and design speaking at New Tech Tacoma, WordCamp Seattle, Rotary Clubs, Creative Alliance of Tacoma, at many community organizations, and as adjunct instructor at the Art Institute and 2U's UX and UI bootcamps for UT San Antonio.
One of my earliest memories of childhood is of lying on my stomach on the living room floor with a fat pencil in my hand and a Big Chief tablet. That giant pad of paper–how I loved it! Not yet able to write all that well, I remember drawing…a lot. I was probably four years old.
In second grade we had a self-portrait project. So into it, I included all the details from the shirt I wore the first day of the project. I earned first place, which was just a congratulatory first position on the wall of portraits. (That alone was enough for me since I otherwise was always last. My last name started with W, and we always had to line up by last name in alphabetical order. Ugh!) Pretty much everything was right…except for the nose. I worked and reworked that thing to get it right and still had a Petunia Pig nose. That darn nose!
My Million-Dollar Idea
That summer (’83) was when I came up with my million-dollar idea. Too bad my mom didn’t save it, or we’d all be rich by now. On a long summer drive from Texas to visit family in Colorado, I had a pencil and notepad to keep myself occupied.
My first newspaper
Since I wasn’t much of a writer then, I put in my paper what I had seen in other papers, namely the Centerville News. Of course, I had to include a wedding announcement…Roy and Ann Droid. I wrote some story headlines and used squiggly lines for the article texts (my early version or Lorem ipsum). Car ads were a must too. One car ad was for the Long Family car. The car we were traveling in was not fun or big enough for everyone to stretch out. So, the Long Family car was pretty much a limousine. Another ad was a feature that came with the Long Family car. This feature transformed the lengthy car into a short, compact car that could fit in any parking space with ease (apparently, this was a concern of my 9-year old self). You could simply squeeze the Long Family car into a smaller car I cleverly called the Squeezador! You may know this car by its current name, the Smart car. Yes, my drawings of the Squeezador were EXACTLY like the Smart car!
I was ahead of the times and innovative at 9 years old. I'm certain my entire family is wishing we had saved that "newspaper".
I wanted something that conveys I’m happy, professional, easy to work with, have a sense of humor, and possess a network of other professionals to execute any creative need a business might have. Because it’s not always just me working on a project, I didn’t want to use my name.
My favorite activity is playing games. I love trivia, charades, Pictionary, etc. I also am in love with my dogs. One of my dogs was with me for 17 years–through boyfriends, college, marriage, etc. How could I combine that to come up with a great name?
A Show That Influenced More Than Just Hairstyles
I thought of one of my favorite episodes of “Friends,” where Monica and Rachael were playing trivia with Chandler and Joey for the girls’ apartment. In that episode, it was revealed that Monica’s nickname was “Big Fat Goalie.” Well, I loved how quickly that name rolled off the tongue. Big Fat Dog Design didn’t quite encompass everything since it overlooks my photography and the networking aspect of what I do. When I replaced “design” with “creatives” the name, Big Fat Dog Creatives, was too long. So, it became Fat Dog Creatives.
The dog graphic was a no-brainer. I used a combination of my two dogs. One was very fat (Zacky), and the other had some cute large patches of color (Shiner).
That’s the name story.
Why San Antonio Businesses Trust Fat Dog
I’m not just a freelancer; I’m a strategist. I don't just design for clients in New Braunfels, Boerne, or Spring Branch, I also served as adjunct faculty member teaching UX/UI design for a local bootcamp and design and layout at the Art Institute of San Antonio.
I don't just "make things pretty." I help executives-turned-entrepreneurs in Cibolo, Schertz, and Bulverde stop talking like corporate robots and start connecting with humans.
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting the same "Petunia Pig" results.
— (Mostly) Tony Robbins
Ready to stop being the best-kept secret in Bexar County?
Whether you're a startup in Stone Oak or an established brand in Fair Oaks Ranch, you deserve a website that works as hard as you do.
I’m Rhonda Negard, and I’m ready to help you communicate a brand your clients will love.
Most web designers treat a website like a brochure. I treat it like a Sales Funnel.
My Trusted Toolbelt of Resources
I believe in transparency. These are the tools I use to keep Fat Dog Creatives (and my clients) running like a well-oiled machine:
All of my projects are built using a reliable set of plugins (tools): WordPress, Beaver Builder, Fluent Forms, PODs, SEO Press, and WordFence.
