Feature Story
Commercial Clients Say North Naples Illustration and Design Firm Is Absolutely Outstanding
By Elizabeth W. Pearce

Pitching a product that does not exist is never an easy sell. But it’s no problem for the clients of Absolute Design in north Naples. Ever since the firm opened for business several years ago, owner Jack Jay Reese and partner John Crum have been translating ideas and wish lists into workable designs and vivid, life-like renderings.
To date, their talents have earned them the respect of major developers such as Pelican Bay Development, as well as contractors, Realtors, interior designers and individual homeowners, among others. As their clients will attest, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a detailed and imaginative illustration could be worth millions of dollars.
Brian Howell is one such client. As vice president of commercial contractor Phoenix Associates in Naples, Howell says an illustration is among the most important elements of any commercial project. “When you’re trying to show people something that’s not there yet, you have to be able to provide an attractive, accurate representation of what you intend to build,” he said. “Jack’s illustrations are among the best I’ve seen. You can tell he has a good eye for what people are going to want to see.”
Howell has hired Reese and Crum to do the illustrations and artwork that will be used on signs and in the brochures and marketing packages for all of his firm’s current projects. Of the four retail shopping centers Howell’s company is building in Naples, two are under construction and two are in the permitting stage. Based on preliminary drawings provided by the builder, Reese and Crum are creating eye-catching marketing materials that Howell will use to attract commercial tenants to each of them.
“Everybody wants to know, ‘What is it going to look like?’” says Reese. “The visual is the catalyst that brings it all together. So if you can conceive it, we can provide the conceptual design and visual imagery for what you want to create, whether it’s a building or a car.” Reese knows a thing or two about both, boasting a career as colorful as his renderings.
In California during the early 1980s, Reese studied industrial design with an emphasis on transportation at Art Center College in Pasadena. After working in automobile design for several years, Reese moved to Chicago, where he designed trade show exhibits for a major exhibit firm. Each exhibit had to be designed and built so that it could be broken down into four-foot by eight-foot crates and shipped to shows worldwide.
Reese says the experience taught him much about construction and engineering, shipping and deadlines. He also learned about unions. “One time I was trying to finish up an exhibit and I was hanging something with Velcro. Almost immediately, I was pulled aside and told that was the responsibility of the Decorator’s Union. Can you believe that? I wasn’t allowed to use Velcro!”
Reese’s next stop was Miami, where he designed home theaters mainly for sports and media celebrities. There, he garnered numerous design awards, along with an exclusive roster of design clients. By the late 1990s, he decided to pursue new opportunities in Naples, continuing with theater design while indulging his passion for architectural design.
“What I studied is quite different from what I’m doing today, even though the presentation part of it is the same. But what I bring to the table is my talent to visualize what’s on the plans and what’s in the client’s head. Thank God people are visually impaired or we’d be out of a job,” Reese jokes.
Crum, on the other hand, works on the aesthetic rather than the technical elements, focusing on a project’s colors, fabrics, wallcoverings and placement. “The fun stuff,” he says.
Before coming to Naples, Crum spent eight years on Martha’s Vineyard, where he worked in the retail and hospitality industries. His interest in design was sparked while working there as an assistant to a well-known fashion designer. “People don’t always have the right eye for things,” said Crum. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of changing one item. I like to tweak things; Jack pulls it all together. We both put the clients first, so it works out really well.”
Although Absolute Design often works with individuals who need assistance with residential design, the majority of their business comes from real estate-related professionals. Among them:
- Interior Designers who need renderings to accompany their sample boards and floor plans so that their firm will be commissioned to do a development’s model homes. “You can see the fabrics and a floor plan and still not know what it’s going to look like or understand what the room setting will look like. We provide that visual,” says Reese.
- Developers who want to show off the amenities of a fledgling community. Often, they’ll rely on Absolute Design to create renderings of a new community’s future clubhouse, game room, gym or other common areas that have yet to be built.
- Real Estate Investment Groups. Initially, many investors have nothing more than a piece of dirt to show to their potential investors or to take to the bank in order to get financing. Rather than waiting weeks or months for architects, engineers or draftsmen to create visuals, clients can save valuable time and money by going to Absolute Design first. “I always say, it doesn’t take a chef to make a hamburger!” quips Reese. “We’ll create a concept that will get the attention of investors.” The rendering also gives the client something from which construction drawings can be made when financing is in place.
- General Contractors and Private Clients. These are individuals who want to build a commercial or residential project (including remodels), but aren’t completely certain about what they want. Reese and Crum will help them devise a concept, firm up their ideas and bring them to life on paper, as well as on presentation boards and CDs, depending on the client’s needs.
“Basically, they’re making a cake,” notes Reese. “They know what they want in it and that they want it to look like a wedding cake when they’re done, but they’re not sure how to apply the icing. That’s where our designs come in.”
Other clients have more definite ideas about what they want when they come to Absolute Design for design work. Typically, they’re pleasantly surprised by the duo’s imaginative enhancements.
“We hired them to do just renderings of what we thought we wanted, but when they did the drawings, they came up with some great ideas,” said Steve Hovland, owner of Hovland Real Estate in Naples. “I don’t know anyone more talented when it comes to creating renderings for marketing purposes.”
Initially, he hired Absolute Design to make some small design changes for Uptown Center, a 78,000sf retail center that Hovland is developing on Immokalee Road in Naples. “We already had a design (for the first phase), but they improved it significantly. That’s when I realized that we should be working with them from the onset, rather than after the fact.”
That’s exactly what Hovland did when designing Mission Square, an upscale, retail and mixed-use condominium project which his company is developing at Pine Ridge and School roads in Naples. “When you’ve got a piece of land like Mission Square, the cost of the land is so great, it demands something really special,” said Hovland. Reese and Crum did not disappoint, and even worked with Hovland on the development’s name.
“Their ideas were much better than we could have come up with. They gave us more than we bargained for as far as design goes,” he said, adding that 20 percent of phase one’s 68,000sf is already sold. “I’ve never seen any more beautiful renderings than (theirs).”
Keith Jennings, vice president of development for Pelican Bay Development in Bonita Springs, agrees that design talent like Reese’s and Crum’s is rare. “There are lots of people out there who can render homes, but when you get into large, mixed-use commercial and multi-family projects, that’s another story,” said Jennings. “It’s very difficult to get a feel for an expansive building and create an atmosphere that allows people to conceptually understand it and the lifestyle we want to convey. Absolute Design has fit the bill quite well. They’ve provided high-quality drawings in a very timely fashion.”
Absolute Design also offers space-planning services for residential and commercial customers who may not need comprehensive design work. Reese and Crum are happy to accommodate, no matter how small the job.
“Design is not about egos, it’s about being fresh and new and giving people what they want Ñ not what I want,” adds Crum. “What we want is to make our clients happy, and that’s why our business continues to grow.”

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