Meet Susie Acheson

We recently connected with Susie Acheson and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Susie, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I always knew I wanted to be an artist, and have been “making” for as long as I can remember.

My grandmother, a painter, taught me to draw, and her art still hangs on my walls at home. A tall, beautiful blonde, she was fifth generation Jamaican – yes, colonialism… :(, and spoke with a broad Rastafarian-like accent. She taught me to revere objects – she had an appreciation for shape, texture, feel, and would take an object in her beautiful hands and make it come alive. I would spend hours with her while she painted in her garage in Florida, drawing and listening to her charming lilting voice. She gave me a passion for art and a reverence for shape, color, and the soul of “things”.

I later and since have used this perspective in my career as a marketer, designer and art director.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

As a designer and art director, I see myself as a story teller. I help my clients build new or re-imagine their existing brands, and apply that personality and look to every aspect of their business. A brand is much more than a logo – it’s a tale, a voice, and a character, and that character needs to connect with its existing and potential audiences.

I do everything from truck wraps to animations, and everything in between: site design, branding systems, motion graphics, illustration, book covers, and more. My strengths are in strategic thinking, and consistent implementation of brands wherever they make contact with the public.

I like to work with others who care about issues like social justice and the environment, whatever they’re selling. I like being around and working with smart people with a sense of humor, both in conversation and their messaging. I believe that wit is precious, and that it sells. I love to collaborate across disciplines towards a single goal. That’s the real super power.

I am currently working on building upon my skills in After Effects, creating 2D animations for clients, and I love it. Going forward, I am very interested in expanding my work with non-profits. Giving back seems particularly important now, and, having had AARP, the country’s largest not for profit, as a client for over a decade, has given me a solid background in the space.

My work can be seen at SusieAcheson.com, and I am always looking for new and challenging projects. So get in touch and maybe we can make something together.

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?

Resiliency is a quality which has helped me consistently throughout both my personal and professional lives. Being an artist can be difficult, and like many creators, I am sensitive, and had to learn to receive feedback in a curious and circumspect way. Any career can be more difficult for women than for straight men, and I, like all of us, have endured sexism and harassment, particularly when younger, and at times had to be tough, outspoken, and very hard working in order to get by.

Empathy guides much of what I do, and it is a core quality for any visual marketing professional. I am a non-meat-eating urban gal who creates a huge campaign for a cattle farmer every year. I am childless, and I have created campaigns geared towards parents and kids. I am able to put myself in the minds of individuals with disparate and sometimes unfamiliar desires and needs, and it has served me well.

Listening. It took me a while to learn this facility – it is a skill, and I’m still working on it. I believe this is it is a quality, along with empathy, that everyone could use to their own and others’ advantage. That includes, by the way, listening to oneself, and trusting your gut.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

I think the biggest current challenge for content creators has got to be the advent and growth of AI.

I have a knee jerk moral aversion to it, given that is based on the unpaid labor of all of us and those who went before us. I do think, however, that we each owe much of our work to our contemporaries as well as our predecessors and always have. I am old enough to recall when computers started to be used for design, and there were many worried that visual content would become glossy and void of life. Some of it did, but that has always been around – just ask any 70’s van artist – and I came to see digital tools for exactly that – tools.

I am currently learning to use Adobe’s AI capabilities, primarily for ideas and sometimes elements – a part of a arger whole. I also hold out hope that with widespread use of AI by design professionals and others alike, quality will become more important, and authenticity key. A girl can dream 😉

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.susieacheson.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susieacheson/