We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laura Matteson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Laura, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Any thoughts around creating more inclusive workplaces?
Creating workplaces that are inclusive of people with cognitive challenges and kaleidoscopic thinking styles
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi! I’m Laura, a brand designer/illustrator turned visual translator. It’s so nice to meet you!
Ultimately, I believe everyone deserves to understand what they’re learning and be understood by others whether that’s in person or online. I shifted my work from branding which helps others remember and interact with your business to visual communication specifically centered on HOW a client interacts with your business from the moment they find you (marketing) to when their project is finished (send-off).
My clients and I focus on clarifying their signature process to improve the overall experience in a way that allows ALL of their clients to fully participate, including their neurodivergent clients. My goal is to draw out the best in others and provide a joyful and understandable experience for those I interact with by using visual aids, and I teach others to do the same.
This looks like providing visual aids and activities to people who think externally and checking in on your process often. I LOVE supporting leaders with ADHD. Their unique way of showing up for others and ideating is exciting and energizing! With the right framework and self-compassion we can create beautiful new things that never existed before!
I have a unique and playful style of service that has emerged from my blended experience in illustrating, designing, and strategizing for over 100 brands all over the world for the past 11 years and my role as a mother with ADHD and Montessori art teacher. Put those together and you’ve got a nurturing and fun approach to business. My favorite way to help people is through the Offbeat Illustrative Community, where we hear from other experts, hangout in monthly business playdates and dig deep into the world of visual aids and illustrative communication and leadership.
My favorite moment – hands down – is in the middle of a vision mapping session (drawing out people’s ideas while they talk) when a client says “OMG! I never even saw that before, that’s exactly it! I feel so seen!” This happens so often and allowing others to feel seen and feel clouds have cleared in their thinking is priceless. I also love watching OIC members interact with each other and support each other in the real world. They are constantly showing up for each other, buying from each other and sharing their wins and questions. It’s such a powerful group of people who truely value their client’s authentic selves enough to create environments where people can show up fully instead of tip toeing around and trying to catch up.
It feels like a dream every morning when I wake up and get to snuggle with my kiddos and then jump into drawing pictures that help people feel seen and empowerd to lead. I’m truly living the dream. I’d be stoked if you came over and joined us!
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Love this question! Honestly all of my clients come from a mixture other happy clients sharing about me and people in my email and social communities who got value out of my content.
I focus on taking good care of my clients through their entire journey with me from the marketing to the post-project check-ins. When I center the person I’m supporting and think about what they need, and what they’re going through, it informs my content and my process so that it’s inclusive and different from other more templated experiences.
I let them know what I have available in my content and in the working together process, and then let them get it when they are ready and when they need it. My driest seasons have been when I am trying to hard to control how people get into working with me. A more hands off approach works much better for me personally. Just creating something awesome and innovative and then allowing others to see it and say “Whoa what’s this!? I wanna check this out!” And then providing an excellent experience in the workshops or content that they attend or read will always lead to new members and clients reaching out with exciting projects that they are working on and want support with.
In a nutshell, my strategy for growing my clientele is be kindness + be helpful and be yourself = innovative and heartwarming experiences that people want to stick around for.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
One of my big lessons in my business actually happened during my process of re-mothering myself as a woman and developing self compassion for my neurodivergence.
In that process, I started unlearning what it meant to be a leader. I always thought that leaders had to have it all together. And I had participated in leadership trainings and had examples of leaders in childhood and teen hood who seemed to have all together. But, they weren’t very vulnerable. And they were really smart – as in able to recall facts quickly. So I thought, “I can’t be a leader! I make mistakes. I don’t have it all together. I’m just kind of doing my own thing and it’s not game-changing.”
And then during business, I got diagnosed with ADHD, I had two children and I discovered that actually, the fact that I can’t recall facts quickly, or that reading is difficult for me, etc, doesn’t disqualify me from being a leader.
Actually, my differences are what really stands out when I’m just being myself. People eat it up! They’re totally into what I have to show them. Because I’m coming from this angle of not using the standard methods of learning, I have this unique perspective of how I’ve had to use visual aids for myself since I was a child, that can transform the “business-as-usual” way of supporting clients and customers. This shift also helped me understand the power of diversifying our leadership and role models. We don’t know what we don’t know!
I’ve been using different ways of communicating to really understand something my whole life, whether that’s developing an analogy around a story, doodling comics of the teacher’s lesson, using picture books to learn something first so I could get all the right language around it and really understand the other books I got in school, or even learning through video – it’s actually valid!
Doing things that are often thought of as less than and not very “professional” or “academic,” have been things that I’ve been able to share with others and people say, “Oh, we’ve been looking for this!”
It’s really lovely to stop and see how that has impacted people and impacted myself too! When I share vulnerably and say, “this is what I do,” other people reply “Oh my gosh, I never thought of that! I didn’t know we were allowed” etc
Now that I know that leadership looks different for different people and that other people are looking for what I’ve learned over my life I bascially just “walk around” online letting people know they are allowed to be themselves.
I had to unlearn that leaders had it all together in order to be professional and that leaders had to be quick to appear smart. Being professional doesn’t actually mean we have to have it all together. It means that we stick to our values and provide quality care. Leaders are just forming a new path and happen to have people following along with them. They’re aware of who’s with them and they’re aware of where they’re going. Then they make decisions from there. This has been a powerful unlearning for my marketing and process for sure!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.illustrative.us
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/illustrative.us
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/illustrative/
- Other: Free Events & Community: https://illustrative-visual-support-studio.heymarvelous.com/product/59057 Email Community: https://www.illustrative.us/email
Image Credits
All illustrations and graphics are by me (Laura Matteson). Photo of hands holding card (card designed by me) and photo taken by Keira Lemonis from Brand Vamp.