Prior to starting her own firm, Karen R. Mazique served as art director at two of Chicago's most successful direct marketing advertising agencies – Jacobs & Clevenger and Stone & Adler – serving the design needs of client rosters that included Levi Strauss, Red Lobster, Sears, and Motorola.

Mazique Design Services was founded 20 years ago, following a distinguished design career working with many of the country's top advertisers and Chicago advertising agencies. Throughout the firm's history, we have spearheaded a wide spectrum of major design projects that have included annual reports, brand and identity programs, event marketing and signage, print collateral, and direct mail campaigns. MDS' versatile design experience has spanned many fields, including packaged goods (NutraSweet, Frito-Lay, Brach's and Windsor Frozen Foods), financial services (BMO Harris Bank, Discover Card, ABN Amro (LaSalle Bank), and business-to-business (AT&T, Abbott Laboratories, American Airlines, United Airlines and ExxonMobil).

MDS has developed creative for national ethnic marketing events for General Mills, including the 1997 Essence Music Festival and the 1998 UniverSoul Circus Festival. We led the design efforts for local events for the Chicago Urban League, Miller Brewing, John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, and the University of Illinois-Chicago. MDS served as design firm of record for Columbia College Chicago's annual DanceAfrica Festival for many years.

More recently MDS has had considerable experience working with community development efforts and not-for-profit organizations, which included Illinois African American Coalition for Prevention (ILAACP) and Sinai Community Institute. We completed a new identity program for Bellwood, a suburban community located west of Chicago. We worked closely with community officials in Harvey, another Chicago suburb, on a major community development effort entitled "Blueprint for the New Millennium."