Since day one, Sayles Graphic Design has weathered many storms. As owners John Sayles and Sheree Clark look back on the company’s ups and downs as they celebrate their 20th years in business, they’re not only amazed at how far they’ve come, but also prepared for the challenges of the next 20 years.

“I was going into it with open eyes,” said Sayles, who had been working as a freelance designer after being fired twice. “I never felt scared; I just thought it was going to take a lifetime to get noticed.”

The company has been noticed. It’s received more than 1,000 design awards and boasts a client list that includes several Fortune 500 companies. That wasn’t exactly what Sayles and Clark had in mind 20 years ago when they set up shop with nothing more than a telephone from Clark’s spare bedroom and a desk that they charged to her credit card.

“I was scared,” said Clark, “but in a way, you’re also too naïve to be as scared as you should be.”

In the first few months, Sayles said, he came to work at 4:30 a.m., Clark around 5:30 a.m., fueling themselves with coffee until 8 or 9 p.m., six or seven days a week. Occasionally, they couldn’t afford to pay themselves. That changed within the first year when they added two employees. Clark burst into tears the first time an employee, who they didn’t want to lose, handed her a letter of resignation.

Then there was an Internal Revenue Service audit, which the company passed with flying colors, but not without some moments of terror as the owners wondered what mistake they could possibly have made that would end up costing them their business.

Sayles and Clark continued to move forward through the farm crisis and the floods of 1993. When the city announced that no one should be working downtown, they shut off the lights in the front of their office and kept working.

“You can’t close down a little business like ours for 11 days and still think that you’re going to be profitable,” Clark said. “We had to keep working, so we did it clandestinely.”

Then a snowstorm struck in April 1999 as the business was were moving to its current location at 3701 Beaver Ave.

But their partnership and their approach to business helped them keep their company afloat. With Clark overseeing client services, Sayles could fully devote his time to design and production.

“Coming into it with a business partner handling a lot of the business side of it gave me the opportunity to focus and just indulge in what’s going on in the world, what other designers are doing, what kind of trends are going on,” he said.

Sayles Graphic Design’s first job in 1985 was an annual report for a non-profit organization. Though Sayles brought some clients from his freelancing business to the new venture, the company initially did a fair amount of pro bono work in order to create a client base and gain exposure.

In his first year doing freelance work, Sayles won one ADDY award, which honors excellence in advertising. In its first year, Sayles Graphic Design won 12, the next year it won about 20, and the following year it won 36. That, Sayles said, allowed him to see that this little business just might survive.

Clark sensed the same when she went to the phone company to buy the business’s first phone system, “when we needed more than just a phone,” and didn’t have to make a down payment. And then in 1988, when the two attended a conference in Los Angeles, she made an appointment at MCA Records, just to be able write off the last few days of their trip for tax purposes.

“She got in the car (after the meeting) and she was crying, and I said, ‘What did they do to you?’ and she said, ‘We’re doing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s greatest hits album.’”

The company continues to collect awards, and Sayles’ work is now on display in several museums, including the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Library of Congress.

Clark has helped write several books, including “Creative Direct Mail Design” and “Get Noticed: Self Promotion for Creative Professionals.” She has three articles appearing in three different publications in January. Both she and Sayles are frequently asked to judge advertising and design competitions and speak to organizations across the country.

The company’s client list has grown to include local such Iowa companies as Meredith Corp., Maytag Corp., Principal Financial Group Inc. and Hotel Fort Des Moines, and such out-of-state businesses as LaSalle National Bank, Marriott International, Milton Bradley, Target and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Though Sayles and Clark take pride in adding such well-known company names to their client list, they also take some ownership in getting start-up companies off the ground.

And they have also continued to do the pro bono work that did so much for their business in its initial stage. Three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Sayles Graphic Design sponsored “Art Fights Back,” an exhibition of 30 new and original posters that Sayles created to honor military and public servants and to celebrate American patriotism. The exhibition, which included sales of the posters and a silent auction, raised $15,000 toward relief efforts.

The company has also produced work for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Iowa for more than six years, including sculptures and furniture that feature plants, animals and insects as central design elements, all of which is done at no cost to the organization.

“We love the look, we think it’s refreshing and bold and fun and we’re happy that we could be associated with their look and design,” said Nicole Hinton, marketing director for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Iowa.

In the future, the business partners hope to do more “environments,” which in the past has included retail stores and restaurants, such as 801 Steak & Chop House and Mezzodi’s, where design work can encompass everything from signs and wall colors to menus and server uniforms.

Sayles, who says he can come up with ideas in minutes, still does his designing with paper and pencil and uses his design team, many of whom grew up using computers to help, with the execution on projects ranging from logos and branding to direct-mail pieces, brochures, product packaging and CDs.

“It’s unusual to find somebody with that multiplicity of skills,” Clark said of her partner. “He’s truly a Renaissance man. For him to take the time away from that craft and learn the computer, to me, you can’t justify it.” Their greatest strength they have, she said, is the combination of Sayles’ sensibility and design skills and a technologically-savvy staff. “That’s why we do the level of work that we do,” she said.