Check out this heartwarming story of how a foundation in Valdosta, Fl is changing the lives of students with Blended Designs backpacks. 

Via. Valdosta Daily Times 

VALDOSTA — The H. DeWayne & Amanda Johnson BridgeBuilder Education Foundation announced the winner of its second annual backpack giveaway. 

Precious Griffin, a fifth-grade student at Sallas Mahone Elementary School, was presented the backpack by DeWayne Johnson, organizer of the giveaway, with her mother, Shelbie Preston, and Principal Dr. Autrice Haugabrook in attendance, organizers said.

Precious’ mother submitted her name as an entry in the BridgeBuilder Education Foundation Backpack Giveaway conducted online.

According to the foundation, the giveaway is completed with support from its donors and as an effort to inspire local young students and provide a quality backpack that reflects a positive cultural image.

“With less than 2% of the more than 670 character backpacks out there including children of color, Blended Designs creates a line of backpacks that fills that void,” Johnson cited from a 2018 Forbes article.

Blended Designs is an African American-owned company that produces the backpacks out of Jacksonville, Fla., organizers said.

Read the full story here. 

Monday, September, 2019 – Blended Designs (BD), the high quality travel accessories brand, has entered the business-to-business space, expanding transactions beyond the consumer to develop and design signature, quality and versatile products for other businesses. 

Blended Designs’ new business-to-business practice comes after a string of partnerships and demands from other brands who specifically requested co-branded products and/or products of their own after noticing the buzz surrounding BD’s very popular backpacks, overnight bags, and other accessories.

 “We are excited to take the Blended Designs business to the next level,” says Blended Designs founder and CEO Casey Kelley.  “Our consumers have raved about the distinguishing attributes of our products, and we are pleased to now offer the signature qualities that have become synonymous with our brand to other companies and brands with discerning consumers who want the best in top-notch bags.”

Blended Designs makes this announcement upon striking a deal to manufacture premium back packs for the hugely successful Support Black Colleges brand, who, up until now, were primarily known for hoodies and t-shirts.  This new partnership officially aids in building the BD business model to stream revenue from other sources, including their everyday consumer.

In previous years, Blended Designs has partnered with various other businesses, including, a 2018 deal with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, where BD was selected by the championship-winning team to design and create backpacks for team members and the team’s philanthropic efforts. Blended Designs first burst onto the fashion and culture scenes in 2017 with travel bags and school backpacks featuring distinct characters of color.  Since its inception, Blended Designs has gone on to be a back-to-school must-have for students of all ages, a celebrity favorite, and a million dollar band!

About Blended Designs

Blended Designs is a brand that creates distinctly designed travel bags and backpacks geared toward the celebration of African American culture, history and destiny. Created to promote inclusion and empower students of color, Blended Designs bags features a diverse range of characters representing a broad range of skin tones. 

About Casey Kelley

More than your average entrepreneur, Casey Kelley is a businesswoman, a mother, a visionary and an inspiration. Dedicated to serving her community, Casey is redefining the African American story with Blended Designs, an aspirational travel brand that educates, motivates, and stimulates the culture’s experience and narrative to truly demonstrate that we all can do anything! 

Featured on The View, Forbes, NPR and ABC News, amongst various other media outlets, Casey Kelley is empowering her children and those of many others with her rise-above-attitude, making Blended Designs one of the most popular resources for school gear specifically designed for people of color. In 2018, Kelley was awarded the FedEx Small Business Grant, and continues to grow her company to impact the world.

By Thao Vo Via Sheen Magazine 

Blended Design backpacks are bigger than just kids on a bag. As a brand, they stand for confidence from within and encourage their consumers to love themselves unapologetically. People buy it so their children and students can be empowered in school. It’s more than just a utility; it’s about self-awareness, and “changing the image to change the narrative.” Tune in to our exclusive interview with the founder and CEO of Blended Designs, Casey Kelley.

Tell us about yourself. What inspired the creation of Blended Designs?

Well, my name is Casey Kelley and I am the CEO and founder of Blended Designs. We first started right after my husband and I got married. We did everything for our wedding, for example, we create the save the dates so that they actually tied into a knot. Everything we did was creative throughout the whole process. People suggested that we go into business and do it for other people. After we married, we opened an Etsy shop. We did things for brides and we were the first to do the “Will you be my bridesmaid” and “Will you be my flower girl” puzzles. It totally exploded! It was really just a side hustle. In 2017, my then eight-year-old son asked me to make him a book bag with his face on it. I did some research and the rest is history!

Why was it so important for you to create a brand that encourages others to love themselves unapologetically?

When Carter first asked for a book bag with his face on it, I really kind of dismissed it. With telling him, I wanted to talk him through it and tell him why it was not a good idea instead of me just saying no. He simply said, “There are no backpacks that look like us.” I started thinking about that and we talked about the images that are out there. There are so many negative images out there so we truly believe that if you change the image, you change the narrative. We did research and found less than 2% of the character backpacks that we found at the time (February/March 2017) included a child of color. That’s such a small number! How are you supposed to think positively of yourself when you don’t see yourself and you don’t see yourself in a positive light?

I remember a conversation I had with my niece years ago. She really had it in her head that in order to do well in life, it meant you had to be white or marry an athlete. That was her perception because that’s all she saw. She didn’t believe that black people could be successful. That was an example that hit home. Here I was making six-figures but she didn’t see that because I had a normal-sized home, not a mansion and I didn’t drive a fancy car.

It’s because we as a community don’t see enough positive images of regular people.

To read the rest of the article click here.

By Alysha Conner

Via. National Black Guide

Blended Designs, LLC is the leading Black-owned family business to provide school gear that produces positive images and messages for students in the African-American community. Casey and Harvey Kelley, Blended Designs CEOs, launched their 1954® initiative in 2017 to further promote and advocate for equal treatment and advantages amongst African-American students. Once Casey discovered that only two percent of all backpacks represent people of color, she decided it was necessary to fill the void. 

The Kelley’s chose the name 1954® to commemorate the legendary Brown versus Board of Education Topeka ruling on May 17, 1954. It declared racial segregation of children in public schools as unconstitutional. 1954® is of a collection of uniquely designed backpacks, lunch boxes, and pencil cases. Each item highlights the diverse characteristics of African-Americans to uplift and empower students of color.  Learn more about Blended Designs here.

Blended Designs founder, Casey Kelley, was interviewed by The Entrepreneurship Institute of Atlanta on Facebook Live called "How to Win Big at Entrepreneurship (From The Inside Out)." Check out the interview here. 

Blended Designs CEO, Casey Kelley, was interviewed on On Point Talk Radio with Charlette Christmas. Check out the interview below. 

Each year Blended Designs partners with several organizations and donates backpacks to them so they can give backpacks to kids in the community. One of this year’s partners was the Southeastern Region of Jack and Jill for America, Inc.

Jack and Jill of America, Inc., is a membership organization of mothers with children ages 2 – 19, dedicated to nurturing future African American leaders by strengthening children through leadership development, volunteer service, philanthropic giving and civic duty.

They stuffed hundreds of backpacks with school supplies for a community service event in the Miami Dade area.

Applications to become a recipient of donated backpacks from Blended Designs are available each October for the following year. 

Via. xoNecole

In xoNecole's Our First Year series, we take an in-depth look at love and relationships between couples with an emphasis on what their first year of marriage was like.

Love is patient. Love is kind. And for many of us in relationships, love can be a delicate blend of ups and downs. Such is the case for Harvey and Casey Kelley.

Having known each other since high school, the two were unknowingly living in the same city around the same time and later reconnected via FaceBook. Harvey was a grant program coordinator through the school system and Casey was a consumer product goods professional and later moved from Atlanta to Jacksonville, Florida after she was unfortunately laid off from Coca-Cola. And it was there that they were dealt the hefty task of trying to meld their new huge (think, five girls and two boys kind of huge) family.

And it's arguably that very task that led them and strengthened their bond to build both in love and in their professional lives. Now serving as entrepreneurs to their own business, aptly named Blended Designs, the two have found a way to bring the story of their lives and passion to inspire into the forefront. Serving as a premium backpack and travel bag, Casey tells me that their mission is to elevate, empower, and educate people of color. And in response to the lack of representation of characters of color in the backpack industry, their endeavor thus found a much bigger purpose.

To read the full article click here. 

Via. Bombshell by Bleu

When doing research on character backpacks for her son, she found that of the 670 character backpacks on the market only two percent featured a child or character of color. With her new brand, Blended Designs, Casey Kelley and her husband plan to change that percentage and encourage youth of color to be their best, academic selves. 

“If you’re not seeing positive images of yourself, how do you know that you can be successful?” said Kelley. “Unfortunately with the way the media portrays people of color, what you tend to see in order to be successful is to be in entertainment, in music, or an athlete.”

Blended Designs has created 10 characters that represent what the brand stands for. Kelley explained that in each of their bios, they possess academic qualities such as being a good student, and having goals of graduating college. 

“The overall goal of our company, our mission is to empower young people, and also to create more first generation college students,” stated Kelley. “If you’re a first generation college student, you’re able to break the cycle of poverty and create more [economic] wealth in the community.” 

To read the full article, click here.

Blended Designs was featured on the Today Show this morning with anchor Jill Martin. Co-Founders Casey Kelley and Harvey Kelley talked about how less than 2% of the character backpacks in the market feature children of color. Their son, Carter, came up with the idea for Blended Designs when he could not find a backpack that looked like him.

Check out this video to see the segment: