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Meet Tracy Tydeman

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Meet Tracy Tydeman

April 24, 2023
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Sed ut perspiciatis unde.

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

Tracy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

My company is called Spots of Joy and the inspiration around my company and the name was my Dalmatian, Faith. I adopted Faith as a puppy and even though she was deaf, she truly lived life to the fullest and didn’t let her disability get in her way.

So when Faith passed away in 2019, it took many weeks for me to start to recover from the grief, and one night I had an idea to share her with the world through a children’s book. Once I started that process, I eventually chose the self-publishing route. And from there, decided a company to publish the book was a good idea and so I had to come up with a name. Naturally, I felt building something around her made the most sense, since she was the inspiration. I went through several name ideas and eventually landed on Spots of Joy. Faith was so full of joy (and spots!), it seemed fitting. And after experiencing the world of COVID, I was already trying to live a life looking for the moments of joy in each day (something that really helped me get through isolation).

Aside from publishing the book, I create other artistic items (bookmarks, cards, etc.) with the intention of spreading joy. Creating brings me joy, and hopefully seeing some of my art brings joy to others. And this has also migrated into my world as a Graphic Designer. I’m hoping to grow a business that helps others and brings joy into my life, because work should be fun, fulfilling and bring us joy.

So Spots of Joy is definitely in memory of Faith and a reminder that you can live life to the fullest. But it’s also a reminder to find the joy in life. Faith found it all the time, as dogs often do, so why can’t we?

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My journey to where I am today, is a long one, so I won’t bore you with all the details, but in a turbo recap, I left Colorado after graduating high school, to pursue Marine Biology in North Carolina. The mountains quickly called me back to Colorado where I taught snowboarding and studied interior design. And later, I shifted to graphic design. And when I graduated college, I took the opportunity to live and work in New Zealand for a summer before finally settling into a full-time graphic design gig in Denver. The reason for sharing this seemingly crooked path, is that a lot of high-schoolers don’t really know what they want to do in life (even if they think they do). And that’s ok. Shifting gears and growing is all a part of the fun!

While that’s the cliff notes to how I go into graphic design, it’s only the start of how I started Spots of Joy. In 2019, things started to shift when my dog Faith passed away. She was the dog I got in college, and raised from 12 weeks old. She was there for me all the years I was single and moving from house-to-house. She was there when I got married and started a family. She was my constant. So, as you can imagine, it was extraordinarily hard to say goodbye. It took several weeks for me to start to come out of the grief, and part of what helped was deciding to write a children’s book about her. It took a few months to figure out the direction, and my approach on how to accomplish this difficult goal. And just as I started figuring it all out, COVID hit.
After almost loosing my job, and as COVID carried on, I started to get burnt out with work. I was a new mom, in a new town, staring at the computer for 40+ hours a week with almost no human contact aside from my husband and daughter. It was a lot.
Working on my book helped massively, but I had to think of how I could really shift things in my favor. I had come across a quote that said “Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments.” That really stuck with me because that’s exactly what I was doing with my book. I was creating it in “stolen moments”. I was working on it on my lunch break, and late at night when everyone else was asleep. I wasn’t setting aside intentional time for it. And since the book was greatly tied to my happiness, it felt like my joy was also in “stolen moments”.
While quitting work and illustrating my book full time would have been great, it wasn’t a realistic idea, due to finances. And then one day, I had this memory of being in high-school and doing so many things. I was going to school, working, playing tennis, taking karate, playing the violin, and snowboarding! And I had so much fun! So why did my adult life have to be ONE thing? Why couldn’t I be a Graphic Designer AND work on my book (intentionally, and not in a hobby format)?
So after going over finances with my husband, and working out hours with my boss, I was able to drop some work hours to allow some of my day to go towards my book. This was a wonderful shift that allowed me to have the best of both worlds and ultimately finish my book.
Once I’d made the decision to self-publish, I decided to create a company around the book, for promoting and selling and that could potentially be used for my own graphic design work in the future.
At this point, I was starting to get a little closer to 50/50 with my time between the book and my graphic design job. I was loving this because I was able to really dedicate time to building up my business. I had the time to create a logo, website, social media accounts and more. So by the time my books arrived, I was ready to start selling and promoting. And since a new, self-published book doesn’t typically start paying the bills, I was still brining in income through my job as a designer. And best of all, I was enjoying all of it.
At the moment, my primary job has slowed down, but it’s allowed me to focus on my own company. I am bringing on new clients, promoting my book, and also working on new art. I’m constantly working on getting my book into the world – knowing that each book that goes out is bringing a wonderful message to young children about not letting adversity hold you back. And now I’m also able to focus on helping small businesses get the graphic design help they need to help their business thrive.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

There is definitely a goal and mission driving my creative journey. I wrote  Meet Faith – The Story of a Deaf Dalmatian, with the intention of helping children see that it’s ok to be different. That no matter what separates them from other people, that they’re unique and wonderful and can do anything they want in life. I want kids to know they don’t have to hold back in life. We’re all too often told we can’t do this, or that, and I want to erase that message.

And the overall encompassing message of my company is to find the joy in life. Do what you love and love what you do. I know my art and my design work brings joy into my life, and if it brings joy into someone else’s life, then that is a bonus!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I think one of the most impactful pivot’s in my life was in college. I was half-way through an Interior Design program at a private school, and had already switched my major once. So here I was, lots of time and money invested, and I realized I was not happy with what I was doing. I had a conversation with a teacher who listened and then gave the best advice I could have ever received. He said “would you rather carry on with interior design, only to realize in 20 years that you hated what you did for a living? OR would you rather loose a couple of years and some money now, in order to pursue something you expect to be happy doing in 20 years?”

That’s all it took for me to realize I had to pivot my career direction. I went to the dean and explained my situation and he was very willing to help me out. Luckily, I’d learned about about the graphic design program and thought that would be a good fit for me, and he was able to transfer most of my credits, so I didn’t loose as much time and money as I could have.

Thanks to the helpful advice of that teacher, and the helpful dean, I was able to obtain a degree in something I really enjoyed. And not only did I start a successful career from that degree, but almost 15 years later I’m still using that degree and still enjoying what I do! Sometimes you just have to be brave enough to pivot.

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Image Credits
Dan Tydeman and Rich Stribling (for the headshot – if that’s not in there yet) 

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