We are excited to share that Michelle Greene, founder of Rough & Ready Media, was recently featured in Voyage Tampa’s Rising Stars series.

The interview highlights Michelle’s path from journalism to creative agency ownership, and honestly, it is a pretty Rough & Ready story: a little gutsy, a little messy, full of deadlines, and built on the belief that good work, clear communication, and stubborn determination still matter.

Before starting Rough & Ready Media, Michelle built her career in journalism. She studied Mass Communications and Journalism with an Advertising emphasis at Fresno State, then started as a newspaper page designer in California before making the cross-country leap to Florida for a design position at the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota.

That leap turned into a major chapter. Michelle moved up quickly at the Herald-Tribune, eventually becoming Managing Editor of Visuals. She managed a team of more than 50 people and oversaw design, production, copy editing, photography, graphics, websites, magazines, TV, and new product development. During that time, she was nominated as part of four Pulitzer Prize teams and was part of one Pulitzer Prize-winning team.

But as the newspaper industry changed, Michelle saw firsthand how quickly “stable” can stop feeling stable. Layoffs, shrinking teams, and impossible workloads became part of the job. Eventually, she realized that if she did not take control of her own future, someone else would.

So in January 2011, she left the newspaper world and started Rough & Ready Media.

There was no perfect business plan. No giant launch. No polished agency playbook. Just experience, creativity, a strong work ethic, and the willingness to figure things out one step at a time.

One of Michelle’s first freelance projects was building a website for a small nonprofit. She had designed websites before, but building one was a different beast. So she taught herself enough HTML and CSS to get the job done, brought in freelance developers when needed, and kept moving.

That mindset became the foundation of Rough & Ready Media.

Today, Rough & Ready is a creative agency that helps nonprofits, small businesses, restaurants, arts organizations, events, and community-driven brands look professional, communicate clearly, and bring their ideas to life.

Our work includes branding, graphic design, websites, marketing, social media, email campaigns, SEO, print materials, content writing, and all the behind-the-scenes strategy that holds everything together.

But what we are really known for is helping clients make sense of the messy middle.

A lot of projects do not arrive neat and organized. They come with old websites, half-written content, outdated logos, scattered ideas, random photos, tight deadlines, limited budgets, and a big vision that is not fully shaped yet.

That is where we do our best work.

Michelle’s journalism background still shapes how Rough & Ready approaches every project. We ask questions. We look for the real story. We organize the information. We think about the audience. We make sure the design supports the message instead of just decorating it.

Because pretty is nice. Pretty with a purpose is better.

In the Voyage Tampa interview, Michelle talks about the challenges of starting a business, the lessons learned along the way, and the future of Rough & Ready. The goal is not growth for the sake of growth. It is about building a stronger, smarter agency that continues doing meaningful work for real people, real organizations, and real communities.

That includes creating better systems, building accessible and manageable websites, using technology in practical ways, and helping clients feel more confident after a project launches.

The name Rough & Ready has always fit because most projects do not start polished. They start rough.

Our job is to help make them ready.

Read the full Voyage Tampa feature here