Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Pam Huber. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Pam, thanks for joining us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

I’ve actually only had one other job in my field, but it was a doozy.

When I graduated art school, I moved to central CA, and interviewed at several agencies, a local magazine, and a large newspaper. Every one of them offered me a job. I went with the ad agency with the more impressive website and catalog of work, (that also offered me health insurance.)

After a few years, the owner kind of mentally checked out. He was taking weeks-long vacations, leaving me in charge of a lot of client communication, which included proposals, presentations, and most importantly, soothing an ever-growing list of seething clients.

I went into the agency as a copywriter who also designed, and by the end of my time there, I was involved with everything from art directing commercial shoots to writing some client proposals, on top of my role as writer and Sr. designer.
It was incredibly dysfunctional, and my nit-picky art director (who worked remotely and therefore avoided the drama) was the best mentor I could have ever asked for. I made so many tiny, stupid-seeming changes for her, and she was ALWAYS right.

So it was a mess of a job itself, but I would never have had the confidence to start out on my own otherwise.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I grew up obsessed with print ads. I’m part of the Sassy magazine generation, and ripped out enough early 90s ad spreads to wallpaper my entire bedroom. That I ended up owning a graphic design studio, and that one of my specialties is publication design, is really not that surprising.

The first job I was ever envious of, though, was the guy that came and watered the plants at the ad agency where I worked.

And right now, I get to be that guy AND run my studio.

I opened Pam Huber Designs in 2012, and over the years I’ve niched down to primarily focus on branding and visual identity design (AKA logos & branded marketing materials), and publication design (AKA magazines, conference programs, workbooks), though I will always branch out for the right job (and client!).

I really love my work, and I’m good at it—and eventually, I found I had worked myself ragged trying to keep up with an ever growing client load. Mentally, emotionally, and physically, I was overwhelmed, and things had to change.

My thoughts kept running back to that plant maintenance guy, and I knew I had to find a way to fit my love for plants into my work life. So in 2019 I added a DBA under my LLC, PH Creative, and opened The Whorticulturist. I offer plant consulting, curate plant collections entirely based on the client’s specific needs and environment, and yes, can even water them for you. I also have a line of greeting cards, drinkware, and apparel—it’s incredibly helpful to have a graphic designer on staff. (It’s me. I’m the designer.)

I’m still working out the perfect balance, time-wise, but I’ve learned I really CAN take two completely unrelated fields and bring my experience and interests into them successfully. I was named Best of Clark County, WA 2022 for graphic design by The Columbian, and the plant side has growing rapidly—I even started my own youtube channel recently (I’m very snarky, very down-to-earth, and have a massive amount of fun doing it.)

Between the two, I get to be creative, mindful, share education, and bring some sort of beauty into my client’s lives. I design logos and other items that transform their businesses, and introduce plants that bring them joy and change entire atmospheres. It’s a combination I’m really loving, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I’ve always liked to share knowledge. I’ve always liked solving problems. And I really love making things personal for my clients…and I do exactly that with both sides of my business. It’s about meeting clients where they’re at, and being flexible enough to know that they are all trying to solve a different problem, so I have to be ready- and willing! – to adjust for them. I can’t offer the same design solution to every client, whether it’s a logo or a plant, if I want them to succeed.

On the design side, I’m solving communication problems visually, whether it’s with a new logo design, a print ad, or a magazine cover. I look at the client, the audience, the desired message, and figure out some options that will work specifically for them.

When I’m curating plants for a client, it’s not that different. I look at the space, their experience, the feel they want, and make that work the best I can around their budget and commitment levels.

Plus, I’m friendly. I laugh easily, and I refuse to take myself too seriously, and I’ve found that goes a long way. I work almost exclusively off referrals, so I have to show up and network, but only within circles where I’m comfortable.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I graduated from UC-San Diego with a BA in Communication, followed by a BS in Advertising from the Art Institute of CA- San Diego, and then I worked in a boutique, full-service ad agency in Central CA for about 6 years.

After my first child was born in 2012, it was a good time to cut ties with the agency, and I took the few freelance clients I had to launch Pam Huber Designs. It was slow to build, especially since I was nursing my son the first year of it (which any parent knows is a part-time job in itself), and we were really fortunate to be in a situation (living rent-free in a family-owned house, plus great health insurance through my husband’s job) that allowed for it.

I picked up clients via word of mouth over the years, had another son, moved to the Pacific Northwest, and eventually worked up a clientele with enough new clients to keep me busy full time (plus some), making more money than I ever did at the ad agency, and getting to choose my design focus, which really had become logo/branding design and publication design.

By 2018 I was also more stressed than I had ever been in my life. I got diagnosed with fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis within a year of each other, and chronic pain plus the clinical anxiety and depression that come with it, running a sole-proprietor LLC, being a mom of two young kids, a husband battling his own depression, even my three pets are excessively high-maintenance…I was dealing with a lot.

I cut my hours back (no weekends, and no work after 8pm) and really tried delegating. I had a bookkeeper, a house cleaner 2x a month, a VA doing billing and stuff, a very hands-on, competent partner at home, and I was still overwhelmed to the point of exhaustion. I wasn’t sleeping. I was having fantasies about getting into a car accident just to be able to take time off and rest. My therapist told me in very clear terms more than once that she was concerned for my health- that my stress levels were highly unhealthy.

I did the things. Got more therapy. Changed medications. Fired some toxic clients. Got into houseplants and gardening.

I did not, however, slow down.

I started a second “side” business, instead, designing houseplant-themed t-shirts and drinkware and stuff, and named it The Whorticulturist. Just for fun, really. And it was super fun to take my experience with visual branding to create a whole new identity for myself. It was really fun to make funny shirts, and do my first vendor markets. I made absolutely no money—I told myself this was just a way to pay for any plants I would inevitable be buying, and could barely cover that. Which meant I was working even more now, and basically for free.

And then there was the pandemic. As a graphic designer with clients across the US, it didn’t really change a lot for me, Pam Huber Designs wise. I did, however, spend a lot more time working at home. Buying more plants. And still not selling many tshirts, so I desperately needed to better monetize my time spent with said plants. So I pivoted again. Added more actual plants to my shop. Started growing more of my own. Cut back on designing for Whorticulturist, and started offering plant consulting online, plus some in person potting help and workshops.

What I didn’t do was pause. I didn’t slow down. I absolutely did not listen to my body, which had been screaming more and more loudly at me.

And my body literally broke. This is an entire other story on its own, so we’ll gloss over it and say I had a very routine surgery go very badly about a year ago. And being FORCED to take a break, being quite literally unable to work for months was incredibly hard.

I’m pretty sure that broken femur saved me, though.

I learned that the world keeps spinning if I’m not working. That clients expect far less from me than I expect from myself. That they’ll wait if they really want to work with me. That it’s really nice to have the weight of a 3 month waitlist off your shoulders. That I don’t have to accept being treated poorly by clients. That my kids need a mom that’s not losing her damn mind. That I’m allowed to say no. That my mental health is so much more important than the numbers in the bank account. That I get to decide exactly what my business looks like.

Right now, it’s a hybrid. About 3.5 days a week I’m doing design work I love, and the rest is for plant stuff, including creating a lot of online content, working at growing my online following to grow my YouTube channel (gotta monetize that time!).

Allowing myself to step back slightly from my design work this past year, something that had been so successful, has been scary. And hard, financially. I’m still around, though! I was voted Best Graphic Design studio in Clark County, WA this year, in fact. I’m going into 2023 just more selective about my work, and way more protective of my time.

Spending more and more of my time with plants, with my hands in soil, watching life literally grow around me, has been incredibly good for me. There’s no rushing a plant. And it’s quite humbling to watch a damaged or struggling plant grow. I’m forced to remember that if they can do it, so can I.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pamhuberdesigns.com | www.thewhorticulturist.com
• Instagram: @thewhorticulturist
• Facebook: @pamhuberdesigns @thewhorticulturist
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thewhorticulturist

Image Credits
Britney Brown Photography, K Tobin Video & Photography