Amy Heidbreder

I have a degree in Graphic Communications from the University of Houston. I love that title for my degree. It’s basically a degree in graphic design, but the title “graphic communications” is so much more indicative of what I feel my degree actually gave me the ability to do.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you imagine a graphic designer? It’s probably a lanky young person, head encased in a pair of hulking headphones blasting something akin to Billie Eilish in a dark room as their blue lit appendages clasp a stylus and push pixels across a monitor. Design though isn’t just drawing on computers or photoshopping random things into or out of pictures. It’s not just slapping text on a page and calling it a day. Graphic design is communicating via graphics. It’s the street signs you use to navigate when deciphering what exit to take. It’s the man and woman icon used to label a restroom. It’s the shape of the most basic letterform. Every single day you choose to communicate visually, by writing something down, by typing an email, by drawing a map, you’re engaging in graphic design.

That choice of font you like to pick to write your emails was painstakingly crafted by a designer, every curve strategically analyzed and crafted to improve legibility or style. Typography is the foundation upon which modern design rests. I went into graphic design, thinking I was just going to learn how to draw on the computer. My first semester in Junior Block was Typography 101, not literally, but figuratively. We even learned how to use a letterpress!

I am so grateful for my experience in college. We weren’t thrown into computer world. We were thoroughly taught concepts of composition and craft. And craft can’t truly be taught on a computer, not in the same way as doing work by hand. So that is how the program I was in taught us. We drew letterforms with the help of stencils, rulers and technical pens. We’d use markers and gouache to color in the forms and create a pristine matte finish. As we eased into the use of color, we started using cut paper to build our compositions. We got experimental with technique, hand creating gradients or texture with paint we flung onto a piece of paper ourselves. We’d spend our nights, producing 30–50 sketches for the following day, all hand drawn. Out of it, we grew a true appreciation for craft that we wouldn’t have otherwise got pushing pixels on a computer.

Learning a new skill in this way is not always fun and never done quickly, but it’s done right. Correctly building a foundation in any skill takes time, and if built correctly, you don’t have to go back and redo it. Nearly every single day, I apply the concepts I learned in school. I don’t hear often from people just how much their college education plays an active role in their life. I’m absolutely grateful for a program that was not a waste by any means in my life. It was a valuable stepping stone, exposing me to all aspects of design, including motion and code, and propelling me into a lucrative career in digital marketing as a Web Content Manager. Well, I guess lucrative by everyday standards. By horse standards, I’m still poor.

Skills, organizations, relationships hastily constructed on the back of an expensive, made horse, with no future planning, or no carefully laid framework, put one at risk of crashing and ruining a business, a horse, or a person or two along the way.

One thing I do feel I tried to hastily build in my life was my riding. What’s tough about riding is that it is a sport, and your time to be successful in any sport is limited. I sunk everything I had into riding straight away upon getting a full-time job, including credit card debt. Let me tell you, that isn’t the way to go. You might think, “oh, if I just get to the next show, I might make a connection.” No, you won’t. I had some fun, winning stuff, but in trying to move up, I hit a ceiling and spiraled because I was missing key skills, so here I am at 33, starting over.

Slow and steady wins the race.

I even found the above quote to be true in jump-offs. Super weird, but every jump-off I ever won, they always started at a normal pace that I built upon, built upon, built upon, until I was flying and leaving out strides in the end. Somehow starting slow and steady worked for me. What happened in every one of those jump-offs is that I built a solid foundation first. If you go into a jump-off and miss your first fence, you’re done. It’s nearly impossible to recover.

All this to say, embrace where you are at, respect your own resources by being honest about your budget, look to training for opportunity, not horse shows, and don’t be distracted by those of your peers who might be more quickly advancing in the show ring. There are some serious skills you are developing. Keep building them. Over time you will break that glass ceiling and show out in a way nobody expected.

A foundation built from hard work and love is a solid foundation. Don’t let haste or jealousy be your demise.

Check back, as I add some of my handcrafted work to my portfolio. Search for the category “with love”.