Overlooking Charles Street one floor above the former Louie's Bookstore Cafe in historic Mount Vernon, Judy and Ellen Lichtman have woven themselves into the tapestry of Baltimore's culture and arts district - by design. Co-founders and principals of Six Ink, a design firm originally based in San Francisco, the two sisters seem to have forged a partnership more out of circumstance than deliberate planning. Yet they couldn't have planned it better.

"We sort of came at design through the backdoor," Judy says, recalling how they got their start. Although both were working in design-related fields at the time - Ellen as an architect and Judy as a high-end digital retoucher - and although Judy was a Fine Arts major at MICA, neither of them was a graphic designer, per se. Perhaps more significantly, neither of them understood the first thing about running a business. They knew a few software programs. That's it. Nevertheless, after a few years of working for other firms in their respective fields, they teamed up and started their own.

"Incredibly naively," Judy explained, "we just said, 'Let's quit our jobs and start a design firm.' If we knew then what we know now, we probably wouldn't have done it."

They began by designing retail products such as handmade journals and greeting cards, which they sold at museum shops, department stores and boutiques in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was the early Nineties. Desktop publishing and the Internet were coming into their own, and opportunity abounded.

About two years into their venture, a non-profit organization asked them to design an invitation to an event. They offered their services (pro bono) and realized that they could be selling solutions, not just products. They immediately transformed their business from a retail shop to a service firm, focusing on branding and identity. Soon they began designing web sites, which they felt especially comfortable with because the technology was just as new to more experienced designers as it was to them. Moreover, the web played into their hands because of their unique design backgrounds.

"We like doing web sites a lot," Ellen said, noting its similarity to architecture, with its three-dimensionality, interactivity and movement.

According to Ellen, the key to their success is that they learned the design process. "And that translates into everything - the creative process is the same.... The hardest part was starting from zero - learning the programs, the language of design, printing (‘which is a whole world unto itself,' Judy added), prepping files. I don't think we wouldn't do it again. It was one of those things - if you knew what it takes to start, you wouldn't do it. But it was a gut thing."

When asked which lessons they had to learn the hard way, there's no hesitation. "Everything," they agreed. But with a firm belief that problem solving is at the heart of design - whether architectural, industrial, or graphic - they seem to have been driven by a shared confidence in their ability to come up with creative solutions for clients.

"It's about what the client needs and wants," says Judy, "not being a slave to style and approach. I feel that it's just not our place to say [to the client], ‘You know, you just don't know what you're talking about.' The parameters are part of the deal. There's a solution out there that falls within those parameters, and it's a matter of finding that solution that can make the client happy and the designer happy - everybody."

In a sometimes self-important field saturated with egoism, the Lichtman sisters have tried to learn from the mistakes of others. They've heard people's horror stories about working with designers - how designers have invalidated them, failing to listen to their needs and give them what they want. "I think that's a critical thing with clients - that you listen and give them what they're looking for, but with your expertise in the mix," Ellen says.

Another of Six Ink's defining values, along with respect for the client, is an openness to a wide variety of clients and styles. Such flexibility is reflected in their portfolio, which features designs for clients ranging from the conservative Wall Street firm Merrill Lynch, to the progressive non-profit organization Planned Parenthood, to a small company that makes educational videos for children. Six Ink doesn't want its clients to come to them for a particular style; they want them to come for solutions - whatever those solutions may be.

One other aspect of Six Ink's business philosophy is a committment to remain small so their clients are always dealing with a principal. Ellen and Judy are both involved in all projects, since they both handle every aspect of the business - from marketing to book keeping to design to production. But beyond skill sharing, the two sisters have discovered that they have an exceptional ability to collaborate with each other.

"It's an incredible, intuitive, collaborative experience," says Judy.

"We both have the feeling that it's right" Ellen adds, describing how they arrive at solutions and make decisions.

According to Judy, people often tell them, "You guys have an unspoken communication going on." But it's not something they've always shared. In fact, they both claim not to have been particularly close growing up, in part because of the six-year age difference that accounts for their firm's name. They're close now, though, both as business partners and as sisters. It seems that family is an important part of their lives. It's what drew them to the West Coast and what brought them back East.

In 2001, at the height of the dot-com boom and the entrepreneurial surge in Baltimore's digital harbor, the Lichtman sisters were drawn back to their home state of Maryland partly because their mother was sick and partly because Judy's husband, an artist, had enrolled in graduate school at MICA. So they set up shop in Mt. Vernon.

While they may, in retrospect, regard their initial entrepreneurial plunge as having been more than a pixel or two shy of wise, they seem to have no regrets. And why should they? With a solid portfolio, an enviable list of clients, and a spacious office in the heart of the city, they're making a living doing what they love. Drawn together by a creative impulse and a passion for perfection, their partnership seems more the result of fate than of their own design. And yet it was their own design, perhaps their best.