We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amber Andersson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Amber, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
It’s so interesting to be answering this question right now. I recently was talking about confidence and how my childhood effected it to an acquaintance. There are people who really never struggle with confidence, or really the lack of, and I think I could have been someone like that. But words are powerful, and I had an emotionally abusive dad that quickly put that flame out. When a child is raised in an environment where even small mistakes have drastic consequences, you become too afraid to make mistakes. And I think in some ways confidence comes from experiencing mistakes and understanding that you can recover from them. You can bounce back. You can learn from them. It also comes from knowing what is true about you, not necessarily believing what everyone says about you is true. When I think back and visualize my past self, it’s honestly very emotional for me. I feel sorry for my younger self. I see this timid, unsure girl who didn’t know her value, who was stuck in this hard place of wanting to be herself, and to discover who that was, but was under this dominating control of her father. I wasn’t really able to develop confidence in myself until I got married. In my dad’s eyes I was no longer his responsibility — I was no longer under his control — but that of my husband’s. But my husband didn’t see me as something to reign in or control, instead he offered me the space and support I needed to grow into my potential and develop the level of confidence that I have now. This was a very long process. You can’t just overnight disregard and relearn how you’ve been taught to think of yourself.
The other major factor in my confidence is my faith in Jesus. Standing on something you’ve built yourself is very shaky ground to build on. If my confidence was based on what I thought of myself, or what others thought of me, those thoughts sway with emotions and likewise my confidence. However, standing on the confidence given to me based on what God says about me — that I have worth, that I am loved, that I am valued, that I was created with a purpose, that I will fail but there is grace — that foundation is strong. So when I do find my confidence wavering, I have a truth that doesn’t waver. A purpose that doesn’t waver. And that’s what keeps me steady.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Professionally, I am a graphic designer, illustrator, typographer, and professor. I recently went to this speaker event with the Dallas-based photographer Justin Clemons, and one of his talking points was to have multiple lovers. Graphic design is my first love. I work full-time as the lead graphic designer at I Am Second, a non-profit organization that films and shares people’s stories of how Jesus has changed their lives. One of my main responsibilities is to create the marketing assets for each film we release, which ranges from the main film poster to email designs and so on. Each design for a film is inspired by who the film is centered around, as well as the content of their story. So, for example, one of our latest film releases was Bryan Rucker’s story, who was heavily involved with gang activities, alcohol, and drugs until he met the Robertson’s family from Duck Dynasty. You hear Duck Dynasty and might think, “Okay, I guess we gotta work in camo to the design.” But I was more inspired by Rucker’s past, of his time on the streets, and so the film poster leaned into street art and has custom graffiti (done by my creative director who used to tag). Juxtaposed to that, our next film release was Meghan Patrick’s story who is a country singer, and she dives deep into a past abusive relationship with a boyfriend and how that inspired one of her songs. With Nashville being Patrick’s fresh start, I decided to make her film poster have that specific Nashville-poster vibe. All of the projects I work on at I Am Second are very wide ranging, which I love. It presents opportunities for me to try new things and develop new skills in areas that I’m interested in learning about or want to grow in. So I stay pretty excited about where I work and what I do. But the main reason why I work at I Am Second is because I fully believe in what we are doing, and I think there is so much power in hearing someone’s story. I mean, just recently one of our stories came to comfort me and my family as we are dealing with some pretty heavy stuff. When you see someone walk and make it through what you currently are going through…it helps you realize that there is hope.
My other love is teaching design students. I’ve been teaching at Dallas Baptist University for a little over five years now. It gives me an entirely different kind of feeling of satisfaction than graphic design does. It’s a little hard to explain, but I think it comes from the selflessness that is inherently in teaching. If you were to focus on the pay being the only “profit” from teaching, it’s very easy to say or think that it’s not worth it. It demands a lot from you, and the pay versus the level of work put in doesn’t balance out anywhere near each other. But, if you see the impact and value you are having on, really, multiple levels — the impact on an individual student, on a group of students, on a generation, and even on a career field — the “profit” is invaluable. So yeah, I love my group of students and pouring into them, mentoring them, and just helping them grow into good designers.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Really, I think there are only two things you need to make it as a creative. Passion and dedication. This is something I talk to my students about because I think it is really important. It is all I had starting out; it’s all most creatives have starting out. I was always doing something creative as a kid, but I was not at the top of my art classes when I first started out in college. In fact, there was a girl who was far more talented than all of us in the class. Some of my classmates were frustrated by it, and I’ll admit I was one of them, but by the end of the semester I decided I was going to compete with her. I put in a crazy amount of hours on my projects to even get on her radar, but when I did we were both on fire. (She’s a close friend now.) Passion and dedication is what fueled me.
First, I think I should lay some ground work for what this opinion is built on. For me, creativity is something that you are born with — every single one of us — and it is a skill that you either hone or you don’t. Creativity is not a talent, as our society likes to think. Why is this important? If you say creativity is a talent, then you place a mental block on yourself that you can only grow so much as a creative because you’ve been allotted only so much. You can get only so far. But the amazing thing about creativity is that you can literally be honing it and growing more creative until you die. It’s a skill. Now, if we have in our mind that creativity is a skill, and creativity is the foundation of any creative job, then we are in the right frame of mind to accept that it’s entirely up to us on how fast or how much we grow in this skill. And to grow any skill, to learn any hobby or job well, it takes passion and dedication. Your passion will feed your dedication and your dedication will feed your passion, because there will be times when maybe you don’t have 100% of each at the same time. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s some step-by-step advice I can give you to have these two things. It is entirely up to you to decide how committed you are. How passionate are you about what you are doing?
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
Personally, I’m a pretty big advocator for bettering oneself and honing those weaknesses. Here are a couple of reasons why I would advise against leaning into just your strengths.
1. 1. It’s boring. If you are always doing what you are good at, where’s the challenge? Where’s the excitement? All of the sudden you become a master at one thing and that one thing becomes all that you do.
2. It’s limiting. If you do only what you are good at, it limits you in other opportunities. For example, let’s say you want to eventually move up in leadership, maybe you even want to run your own company, but leadership or management is a weak point of yours. If you lean only into your strengths then you have two options: 1. Never become a leader or manager or own a business; or 2. You do what you want anyways, to the detriment of your team or your family, and that’s just crappy.
I don’t think it is a bad thing to do what you are good at, and I think it should be 90% of what you do. You wouldn’t want to rely on your weaknesses to bring in money to live on, that’s just foolishness. But there’s so much available to you in growing in your weaknesses as well. If you find the temptation or the pull to just lean into your strengths, I’d encourage you to reflect on why that’s the case and what are you missing out on by doing so. Are you scared to fail? Is it pride? And then I’d ask you, is playing it safe worth it?
Contact Info:
- Website: amberandersson.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/andersson.designs/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/amber-andersson-02a242113/
Image Credits
Portrait Image: Abby Bengs
