What is Focus97?
The name derives from a genesis — 1997 was the first year that Mike began to actively focus on pursuing a passionate life.
The year marked a dramatic shift in focus towards academic pursuits, and it was shortly after that he began regularly carrying a camera.
Photography was the original driving force behind what would become Focus97. While most of the work running through Focus97 is design and development work, the creative core for any project is still based on strong imagery.
Our creative works have helped to launch and propel brands across the spectrum – from fashion to financial, local artists to public figures. We have fun with all this stuff.
The People
Michael Lee
Founder
Mike’s been crafting digital experiences since 2002.
The design/development business sort of happened by accident. Formal education and training is from UC Davis, with a degree in Neurobiology, and a minor in Philosophy. The affinity for web design/development happened amidst course studies. After taking up photography in college, and eventually selling a few prints, it seemed prudent to build a website to showcase photos to the larger world wide web audience.
Since then it’s been years of academic-style training and appreciation of web standards, minimalist principles, typography, technology, and a few coding languages. Designing interfaces and developing brand experiences for people is a great gig indeed.
Amanda Lee
Marketing & Analytics Boss
Amanda is originally from a small town in Wyoming that nobody’s ever heard of.
Since she watched that small town grow even smaller in her rear-view mirror, she’s traveled to more than 100 cities in 10 different countries (she actually counted once). She’s now happy to hang her hat in San Francisco, a city everybody’s heard of.
Her background in marketing, PR, communications and behavioral sciences has given her a well-rounded marketing perspective, complemented by a strong creative bent. Along with developing and executing content marketing campaigns across multiple channels, she loves a good SEO puzzle to solve and knows way more about Google Analytics than most people would ever want to. She’s also a portrait, product and lifestyle photographer, and her work has appeared in many online and print publications.
When she’s not working, she’s usually out exploring the city with her dog or cooking up some new, experimental dish in the kitchen for Mike Lee to test out.
Motto
Age quod agis
\ˈä-ge-ˌkwȯd-ˈä-ˌgis\
LATIN: “Whatever you do, do well.”
Fine-art Prints
If you are interested in ordering a print, just let us know the image and desired size in the form below.
Prices range from $200-$400, depending on size and paper type. Generally sizes start large – 12×18 or 16×24 – to showcase detail, with the most commonly printed size of 20×30. The images themselves are captured with Canon’s pinnacle system – the EOS 1Dx. This means tremendous detail, even when printed poster size.
Prints will be signed and shipped direct to you.