Delicious Celebrates 25 Years in Business!

Having arrived in Bend, Oregon a little over two years ago, Delicious is one of Central Oregon’s newest creative agencies — but also probably one of it’s most experienced. They recently celebrated 25 years of doing business locally, nationally, and internationally.

It was 1991 when Robert Rekward started Delicious in a studio apartment on the Hawaiian island of Kauai: “looking back, I was just a 22 year old surfer who didn’t really know anything about running a business, I just knew I loved design, and couldn’t picture doing anything else”. Fortunately, a local credit union was impressed enough by Robert’s portfolio that they agreed to give him a $5000 loan which barely covered the cost of the used Mac II he used to launch the company.

The next year, Valerie (who a decade later would become Robert’s wife) decided to join the company and bring her considerable industry experience to the table. A graphic designer and technical illustrator by training, Val soon pivoted to the role of Managing Partner. Today, she works with clients on their strategy, planning, and tactics and to lay the ground-work for their success. She says: “our strong focus on the up-front coaching and preparation has always been big part of our approach to marketing. We help our clients to ‘dream bigger’ — and then we collaborate on creative solutions to make those dreams come true.”

As you might expect, an agency that has been around for 25 years has an incredibly deep portfolio, and a large swath of that can be viewed at deliciousdesign.com. Along the way, Delicious has collected some notable ‘firsts’ and a case full of awards: they built some of the Internet’s very first websites, long before there was ‘Yahoo!’ or ‘Netscape’; they were the first agency in the islands to bring home a National ADDY award for self-promotion; and the first to win an SBA Exporter of the Year award for the work they did for clients in New York, Toronto, Fiji and businesses around the globe.

“A lot of our projects are done for clients outside of Oregon, so as we did in Hawaii, we’re bringing an influx of revenue into our new home town — and that’s pretty cool.” Said Robert. “But we’re also proud of the work we’ve done locally and it’s rewarding to walk in to the office each morning and see all the projects we’ve done for businesses here in Bend.” Valerie added.

Thanks to everyone who as made these 25 years so successful and rewarding – clients, staff, vendors and other industry partners.” You can reach Delicious by calling 541-390-7277, emailing them, or on the web at deliciousdesign.com.