When I enrolled at the School of Journalistiek in Utrecht in September 2000, I wasn’t thinking about marketing. I was thinking about words and images; how they work together, how they tell a story, how they make someone stop and pay attention. With a mother who had a natural gift for text and content, and a grandfather who painted and photographed, the dots were easily connected. The Bachelors programme Redactionele Vormgeving was exactly that: the intersection of editorial thinking and visual design. Writing that looks good. Design that says something.
When the industry shifts, you shift with it
What I didn’t know yet was that the industry I was training for was about to change beyond recognition. By the time I graduated, desktop publishing software had quietly dismantled the traditional layout roles at newspapers and magazines. The work that my programme had prepared me for was shrinking fast. Infographic and artwork positions were going to graduates from art academies, not editorial design schools. The door I had trained to walk through was closing.
So I did what you do: I adapted. I started doing DTP work, the craft end of design, production-focused and deadline-driven. It wasn’t the dream, but it put me in the room. And being in the room, as it turned out, was everything.
Learning from the inside out
DTP work lands you in the middle of marketing departments. You’re the person who makes the materials. You see what gets approved and what gets sent back. You understand the brief from the inside. You notice when the strategy and the execution don’t match. Slowly, without really planning it, I was learning marketing from the ground up; not from a textbook, but from doing the actual work alongside the people responsible for it.
Looking back, that detour wasn’t a setback. It was the best possible foundation. I learned to think visually and editorially at school, and I learned to think commercially and strategically on the job. Most marketers can do one or the other. The combination, being able to write the concept, design the asset, and understand why it needs to work, is what makes the difference.
It’s also what makes my work for equestrian clients different. The horse world is full of beautiful imagery and passionate people, but the marketing often doesn’t do justice to either. That’s the gap I’m here to close.
I didn’t take the straight road. But it got me where I want to be.
