Jenny Fares
A creative force to be reckoned with, Jenny Fares has been an active player in Asheville’s artistic community for nearly thirteen years. Jenny is a mover, shaker, and all around crowd rouser. Her collaborations are a walloping cacophony of sound and fury, art and fun. She thrives in creative, energetic circles – and it shows.
Jenny started her career working for some of Atlanta’s top ad agencies, designing for Coca-Cola, M&M, Mars and UPS. She left the big city for the relaxed pace of Asheville in 2002, and worked at the Brite Agency for two years before opening Sound Mind Creative in 2004. While building a national client base, Jenny collaborated with a handful of Asheville’s rising agencies. In 2010, Jenny moved to her current studio in the River Arts District. She was honored to be named Best of Graphic Design in WNC by Mountain Xpress readers in 2012 and 2013. She was honored in 2016 to move her studio into the Refinery Creator space in the exciting downtown South Slope neighborhood.
With a personal battle cry, “Power to the People!”, Jenny’s humanitarian efforts reflect her creative, playful heart – benefiting the good people of Asheville in countless ways. She was very recently featured on the cover of Asheville Citizen-Times for creating a “legacy of innovative music programming” for the city. She founded and ran Music Video Asheville for 5 years and the Brown Bag Songwriting Competition. A staunch supporter of the design and creative community in Asheville, in 2016 she organized a wildly successful eight month series on collaboration with the Asheville Design Salon monthly topics include web development, illustration, film and social media.
Jenny’s community, fitness, and environmental offerings are equally respectable. This past fall she organized the Run Sing Thing to benefit a 5k singalong fun run for Arts For Life. Currently, she serves on the advisory board for Creative Mornings Asheville. As President of Bent Creek Community Park board 2013, Jenny helped organized an event that raised $10,000 for the county-owned park. In the same year, she served on the board of the River Arts District Business Association (RADBA), leading a branding workshop for the RAD and street clean up projects. In addition to being a rocking designer, illustrator, trail runner, environmentalist, event planner, and avid wig collector, she’s often covered in paint and glitter glue from a new art project. As the former lead singer of Asheville folk favorite, Jen and the Juice, she headlined area festivals including LAAFF and Downtown After Five, and the band’s record Meet the Hooligans of Bohemia was named among the top 10 regional albums of 2006 by 88.7 WNCW. In 2008, Jen and the Juice’s band cd was voted in the top 10 by WNCW readers. Today, Jenny enjoys her first baby, Layla Fares born February 2016.