Two humans
on the wheel.
No staff. No subcontractors. No proposal templates. Both of us at the call, both of us on the file.
We started Northside because we kept seeing the same thing.
Genuinely talented people doing too much of the wrong work and not enough of the right work. Spreadsheets eating creative time. Bad tools creating friction. Brands that didn't match the quality of the work behind them.
We're Patrick and Blake. Between us we've built brands, products, systems, and businesses. We've worked with small businesses and large operations. We've used AI since before it was trendy and design since before it was digital.
What we care about most is people. We like sitting across from someone who's good at their thing and helping them find — and keep finding — the line back to it.
Patrick.
Builder · Systems · AI · Creative Direction
Started designing t-shirts. Moved to video, then animation. Spent four years between the US and Germany as Creative Director at TopWare Interactive — shipping titles like Two Worlds and X-Blades onto shelves at CompUSA and Best Buy. Then a media company. Then a creative one. Most recently CTO at ThriveSports, where he rebuilt the platform from golf-only into a full multi-sport coaching system and helped land the NBC Sports partnership. Twenty-five years of software. Apps used by Stanford, Yale, USC. Work for Hilton, Forbes, Law.com, AP, Comcast — and just as much for the scrappier brands behind them. Self-given title: Creative Systems Integrator.
Why Northside? Because the work he kept doing solo — climbing into other people's systems and helping them point a clearer way forward — is the work Northside is actually built around. He gets to do it with a partner now, in a studio with a name on the door.
Blake.
Designer · Creative Director · Pro Snowboarder
Maui kid. Mt. Shasta local. Pro snowboarder by morning, designer by night — and neither at the expense of the other. BFA in Graphic Design from Sacramento State. Years on the design seat at RIDE Snowboards, where the work that ended up on boards under his feet was the same work he was making in the studio. His own shop — Driskell Design — followed. Brand experience design built on the same instincts that get him down a mountain.
Why Northside? Because he's tired of seeing creative people crushed by the wrong systems — and tired of agencies that promise to make you 'look good' without ever asking what's actually happening inside the business. He'd rather sit across from someone real, find the thing that's stuck, and design the way out.