Kohlsdorf: Almost a century ago, outlaws Bonnie and Clyde took the White Pole Road right here to Stuart, where they knocked off the First National Bank.

Today, the town is reaching people from all over the country thanks to Doe A Deer, a national retailer with a local storefront.

Let's take a look inside.

♪♪ Regan, this is an amazing space.

Tell us about Doe A Deer and how you got this storefront.

Yes.

So, we moved into this space about a year and a half ago.

Prior to us moving in here, it was the Stuart Appliance store.

For us, it's the perfect space as we have a really great divide between our storefront and our warehouse.

I was really passionate about wanting a business on Main Street.

I just think Main Street's the heart of the community.

Regan Doely started Doe A Deer as a side project while working full time as a graphic designer.

Beginning with wedding invitations and logos, she moved quickly into product design and sold her merchandise at local craft shows and through online vendors.

As her customer base grew, so did Doe A Deer's need for space.

In 2022, Doely and her team made the leap to this vintage Stuart storefront.

Our flour sack towels are our best-selling product, far and away.

I hand illustrate all of the designs on those.

I'm a big textile person, and my mom and I are into, like, antiques and thrifting, and so I grew up with, like, the embroidered flour sack towels.

We also have, like, Swedish dishcloths, mugs, bowl covers, just a lot of fun kitchen accessories that can be really great gifts.

So, this is your warehouse.

It's as big as your storefront.

Yeah.

It is.

We started online, and it still is probably a majority part of our business.

So, we do wholesale and sell to other boutiques across the world, really -- like 500 at this time.

Your products are very Instagrammable, for sure.

Well, show us some of them.

Yeah.

These are your towels that you said you're famous for, right?

Yes.

So, this is our Iowa towel, which has been a best-seller for a number of years.

So I kind of just illustrated some, different aspects of the state and included that on this fun towel, so... You have a lot of products and you designed a lot of them.

Walk us through this process.

Yeah.

So, really, I love to start in my sketchbook.

It's kind of my, yeah, the place that I love to go first.

I just, like, sketch out any ideas.

It's definitely not, like, finished product.

It's just phrases or ideas, or sometimes I make word lists.

But like this, for example, is like a holiday design that I designed, actually.

We really are big into seasons around here.

That's when we sell to other stores.

And then for us specifically, too, with our store, when we do a big flip, it's always for a new holiday or a new season to come, so...

So you've always got to be thinking ahead.

Yes, always thinking ahead, always planning like six months in advance at minimum.

So, yeah, this is my -- kind of my place that I go to design or to sketch out all of my initial ideas.

So then, after that, I grab my iPad, and so, I pull up my little trusty illustrating app here.

And then this is where I do all of my hand lettering, all of my illustrations.

So, I will sketch out some of the elements of the design.

Where your graphic design background comes into play.

Right?

Yes, yeah, for sure.

I mean, I actually never thought of myself as an artist in any stretch of the imagination.

I really liked just laying out things on a computer, so never in my mind would I have thought I would be designing and drawing literally everything that you see on all of our products, so it's kind of crazy.

This is really how I do that.

And then I send all of this to my computer and really, like, lay it out fully on my computer.

But after that, I send it off to our manufacturer, and it comes back to me like this.

I love it.

So, you're the artist, but then you're also the business owner.

So, what's it like running your own business?

Yeah.

Like with anything, it comes with challenges, but it's fun.

You're doing something different all the time.

You have all these different hats that you get to wear, which is fun.

And then we're right on White Pole Road, which is really awesome.

We get people coming in frequently that are traveling along the byway and that are just making their stops in each town and exploring what we have to offer.

So it's really a great place to be, and I'm really happy with all that Main Street's becoming here in Stuart.