Entrepreneurial sisters from Carolina, Clemson offer original, affordable skins for mobile devices
A USC student has launched a company that creates, among other products, cell phone and laptop skins.
Samantha August, a third-year international business and management entrepreneurship student, launched her design company SaVi Design last May. August co-founded the business with her sister, Victoria August, a second-year architecture student at Clemson.
Samantha August began graphic designing her freshman year at USC. Not long after, she began designing for various organizations on campus, such as the Club Tennis team, Dinobrite Productions and the Waverly Center After-School Program.
“Because of my previous experiences and business major, I am in charge of the operational side of the company, including managing the website and managing the financials, and my sister designs most of the custom orders,” Samantha August said. “These are our primary jobs, but we often overlap.”
The company began as a trial run and kept growing. The sisters were able to hire a web coder for a functional website and acquired a business license this year.
“We are continually expanding and improving our product base and marketing efforts, and are hoping that the company will eventually become well-known at both the city and state levels,” Samantha August said.
SaVi Design has multiple options for customers interested in the cell phone and laptop skins.
“The skins are easily removable and don’t leave any residue on the phone when taken off,” August said. “I have always had an interest in entrepreneurship, so after my dad came up with the idea of designing skins for devices, I designed the website, and my sister and I started the company.”
August said she was inspired to create the skins after traveling the world last summer. She recreated the images of designs and landscapes she had never seen in the United States, using a special design software on her laptop.
“Usually when we design skins, we have some sort of inspiration coming either from a request or idea of a friend or an item of clothing we see in a store,” she said. “Everything we see around us is stimulating and enables us to keep creating.”
She said that the company can make skins for any device.
“Our designs include creative patterns, objects and even skins for sororities that can be found in the Greek section of our website,” August said. “Our customers also have the option of requesting a certain design.”
The items on SaVi Design’s website are reasonably priced for the average college student.
“Our SaVi Design pre-designed phone skins run at $20 and laptop skins at $30,” August said. “We also do custom designs for an additional charge of $5.”
The target market is females between the ages of 15 and 30 years who want a stylish skin to show off on their phones or laptops, she said.
“Our customers are those who want to stand out and make a statement.”
Fourth-year marketing and management student Isabel Arias said she operates as a consultant to August as part of her project in the business school. Though she hasn’t purchased any of August’s products, Arias said she plans to and considers the skins to be a great gift.
“I think it’s a great business that offers a really unique product. Sam has a lot of creative talent, and you can really see that in what she designs,” Arias said. “One really cool thing about SaVi is that they will custom-make designs for you, and pretty much no one else will do this.”
All products are currently available online at be-savi.com. Currently, the company is looking into moving into retail stores in the Columbia area.
Other services include logo designs, event posters designs, advertisements, invitations and more. These can be requested on the Services page on the website.
August said The Daily Gamecock readers can receive $5 off their next SaVi Design purchase by entering the code “dailygamecock” at checkout.