About Us

Were we a different sort of people, we might make TerraFirma Creative sound like a big-city firm staffed by a team of a dozen creative people.

We’re not that sort of people.

TerraFirma Creative was founded in 2002 in a spare bedroom in Davis, California.  Today, the founding partners live and work in Boise, Idaho, but we collaborate with clients from all over the place.  Among our clients are small businesses, musicians, freelancers, metropolitan community newspapers, and individuals who need the occasional print or graphic design for their pet projects or events.  If you’d like, you can check out some reasons to hire us instead of those other guys.

Pete Brooks took his first job at a printing company in the mid-1980s, and has participated in the evolution of the industry from Letratone and stripping tape to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.  He has a soft spot for dying industries (several weekly newspapers are among his regular clients) and a talent for organizing complicated projects, coordinating teams, and meeting deadlines.  When he’s not working with clients, Pete practices his guitar, dedicates himself to his Top Secret Major Writing Projects, and wrestles with his 100-pound Lab-Golden Retriever puppy.

Leslie Madsen-Brooks has been–among other things–a journalist, edublogger, development writer, informal science educator, museum exhibition developer, arts marketer, long-suffering grad student, and professor.  She holds a B.A. in English, and M.A. in English/Writing, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in cultural studies.  Our resident writer and editor, Leslie helps TerraFirma’s clients project a strong voice and clear message.  These days, she’s on the tenure track in a university history department and typically dedicates much of her time to researching, writing about, and teaching U.S., gender, and public history, but she works with select TerraFirma clients when she finds the projects especially interesting.  She has a fondness for WordPress, horses, social justice movements, and preschoolers.