What would you say you do here?
Consider this my “about” page. My name is Peter Berta and you can call me Pete. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in a predominantly blue collar family. My father was a truck driver and my mother was a hair dresser. I made an attempt to go to college but as it turns out I don’t learn that way. I started working for a family friend who owned a sign shop in my early twenties. That ignited my graphic design journey.
I am now fifty and 2025 marks the official launch of FCS. Over the course of my career I have always had a side hustle freelancing and now it’s time to turn that side hustle into a full-time hustle and start my own business.
Due to my meticulous nature and my personal goal to have everything a certain way I was given the nickname “Mr. Fabulous” by my close friends. I used to hate it, but now I embrace it. FCS is short for Fabulous Creative Solutions, the actual name of my LLC.
My History
From my early to late twenties I worked for companies that are often referred to as vendors. I designed and physically produced short run print jobs and large format prints for corporate and trade show signage. I managed the process from start to finish.
I started agency life at thirty. While I was “unknown” in the world of Chicago advertising it did not take me long to prove my worth. Quickly moving from junior to senior roles. I began working for extremely talented boutique agency on clients such as Wrangler, Ariat, PaperMate, and The Chicago White Sox during their 2005 World Series Championship.
After a few years I moved onto a larger global agency where I designing direct marketing and retail in-store signage for Citibank card products and out of home for American Airlines AAdvantage and Cracker Barrel.
Moving through my forties I spent some time at an innovation agency bringing client ideas to market with Drifire, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Case New Holland as clients. I was brought on at the investment firm Peak 6 to roll out their new brand image, then switched things up to a pharmaceutical agency designing PowerPoint presentations for payer focused healthcare providers. It was at this agency where I learned to embrace PowerPoint and honed the craft of presenting huge amounts of research and data in a visually appealing manner for Astellas, Novartis, Merick, Takeda and Seattle Genetics.
In my late forties, during the pandemic I was brought on board with an agency located in San Francisco. From Chicago, I remotely managed their creative studio from an operational standpoint. They specialized in financial services and technology clients like Intel, Bank of the West, River City Bank and Discover Global Network.
These financial services clients like pharmaceutical clients have a need to convey large amounts of information and data in a manner that will not be off putting to the viewer.
Agency Quality without the Agency Price
FCS has the appearance and professionalism of an advertising and marketing agency but I can assure you it is a one man show. Where a typical agency will have layers of people and bureaucracy FCS does not. As opposed to your instruction going from your account representative to a project manager to a creative director to a designer. At FCS your instruction will go straight to the person doing the work, me. Nothing will be lost in the chain.
You will not be subject to a bait and switch either. Unlike some agencies I will not use my best people to win your business only to move them onto the next pitch while a junior staff takes over your projects.
I will be the only individual working on your project. We will work directly. I will call upon more than twenty years of agency experience to deliver your project with the quality that you would expect from an agency but without the hassle or the bloated schedule and budget.
Want to discuss this or other blog topics?
Reach out to Peter at FCS today and he will be happy to take the time to discuss whether our freelance services are a good fit for your projects.
Are you still here?
That’s cool. What else would you like to know? I married a beautiful Polish girl named Eva ten years ago. She was born in the U.S. but grew up in Southern Poland near Krakow. Eva’s older sister and her family still live in the same town. I’ve been to visit them three times and I absolutely love Poland. I would love to be able to retire there someday.
Eva and I have decided to not have children, instead we have four cats. Harold, Susan, Jack and Mavis. I am a true cat dad. I talk to them like they’re people. I spent a month building them a huge enclosure so they can safely go outside. Once you get me talking about cats I won’t shut up so take that as a warning.
When I’m not working on PowerPoint decks I can usually be found in the garage tinkering with something. I like to weld and build things out of metal. I like to work on cars. I’ve been interested in cars for as long as I can remember and I have been racing cars for most of my adult life. Some people drink, some do drugs. I like to take my car to a track and see how quickly I can cover the same 1.3 miles and 9 turns. When you’re on a racetrack you can only think about one thing, you are completely lost in a simple task that you repeat every minute and 44 seconds. There is such a relief to surrendering yourself to a simple task.
