Honest Folks Doing Honest Work

Our strategy remains: work hard, create lasting relationships, and deliver the very best quality work.

Eric Downs at Desk
Mike DeKay desk
Brooke Ratliff
Eric Downs tattoos
Mike & Kristin DeKay with Baby
Mike DeKay camo shirt

BFFs

Grain & Mortar is a partnership that began between Eric Downs and Mike & Kristin DeKay in 2011. Since then, we’ve been fortunate enough to work on hundreds of projects for clients in a wide variety of industries.

12

years in the making.

Let’s not forget about people.

We know how to design and build for the web, how to talk about lead-gen and build for conversions and so on. But we also understand something just as vital – we’re not creating for robots, but people.

We bring a human-centered approach to our work by bringing through elements of delight and humanity.

Nothing makes us happier than when we can partner with our clients to bring more beauty into the world.

Brooke Ratliff office
Mike DeKay outside
Eric Downs with Kitty
Barcamp Omaha
Studio Bench

Real people with real feelings.

Kristin DeKay

Partner and Operations Director

Kristin manages business development and studio operations. Her strong organizational skills come in handy internally and externally, allowing Grain & Mortar to run efficiently and ensuring client projects are executed successfully.

Mike DeKay

Partner and Creative Director

Mike works with clients on design and illustration. He creates strategy for brands and executes it using his diverse skills in brand design, print layout, illustration, and digital design.

Eric Downs

Partner and Technical Director

Eric builds websites with strategy and code. His knowledge of building in a variety of platforms allows him to create highly robust sites that are as functional on the backend as they are beautiful on the front end.

Brooke Ratliff

Producer

Brooke makes sure things get done. She oversees content strategy and development as well as site planning and organization. Brooke’s ability to quickly solve problems and create order out of chaos makes her a crucial member of the G&M team.