Get to Know Olivia Smith Design
My Design Journey
Creativity has always run in my family. My dad and mom were always working on projects around the home and built the house I grew up in. Dad spent 27 year owning a business, which included working in CAD to design office spaces. My mom has painted walls upon walls, designed spaces in her home, scrapbooked, and is a beautiful piano plater. My siblings are great at drawing, building, sewing, whittling, and furniture making. I remember drawing at the small age of 3, as I watched Pappy Drewit every morning with crayons nearby. It was a show about an older man in a magical forest and he taught you how to draw. I’ll never forget carefully copying the things he did on the screen and proudly showing them to my parents. Throughout childhood and into middle school years I loved everything from jewelry making, making little clothes out of paper, coloring with markers and pencils, creating with oil pastels, and molding Play-doh. I dreamed of becoming a fashion designer and stuffed a little notebook with all of my fashion ideas (which I still have to this day).
As I approached high school, hand-lettering on Pinterest became the thing and I spent hours upon hours practicing fake calligraphy and flourishes. I, like many other girls at this time, began to pair my lettering with watercolors. I’d scan in my work to the computer and use PicMonkey to piece together designs and make prints for my mom or my room. I began to sell my work—five prints specifically—to raise money for a missions trip, which was actually quite successful! I opened a little Etsy shop and was delighted to have my first sale after two weeks of being open. It was a little watercolor mountain print with a Bob Goff quote carefully lettered around the top (seen below).
I began college in 2015 and had every intention of pursuing something with kids and something in missions. There wasn’t really a clear direction, but two weeks into school I called my dad on a whim and said, “I think I want to try graphic design.” That phone call, which no doubt was an act of God leading me, and my dad’s encouragement led to 9+ years of graphic design. I hated my initial design classes, but the more I learned about illustration, branding, web design, Adobe Illustrator, print design, and every little thing in between the more I couldn’t get enough. I’ll never forget illustrating lumberjacks and it was the first time Adobe Illustrator really clicked for me—I fell in love. Once I learned how to merge my watercolors and lettering with graphic design, it was game over. I felt like I was really doing what God called me to do—create.
From undergrad, I chose to purse an MFA in graphic design which was where I began to develop my style and gain teaching experience. During these days I was MAD broke. Like $12 in my bank account broke. I had just enough of my job’s stipend to pay for rent, groceries, and gas. That is it. So I started to amp up my Etsy shop and created banners. Surprisingly it took off! The banners supplemented my income so I had a bit more cushion, which was a huge gift. You could often find me in the MFA studio at school either designing on my computer or painting a fabric banner for a wedding or living room.
The more I created, the more I loved detail work, feminine styles, illustration, and combining my love for Biblical studies with design. I started to embrace the wedding world and dabbled in stationery design, as well as participated in multiple styled shoots with fellow colleagues and friends in the business. As I continued to work in that field, it felt so natural to me. I’ve always been drawn to beautiful things, so this was an incredibly important period in my design journey that helped establish my style and develop my attention to details.
Now, all of this combined equipped me for one of my largest projects to date: my MFA thesis. I had to research and design a solution to a problem—any problem of my choice. During my time in undergrad, I took classes for a biblical studies minor and fell in love with the prophetic books in the Bible. It occurred to me, there isn’t much out there to encourage women to read these books despite how confusing and difficult they are. I found my problem, which was the easy part. The hard part was developing a solution. I researched, wrote, illustrated, and designed a handbook for women to guide them in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. It’s certainly not extensive as it needs to be, but this project means so much to me. I devoted countless hours and attention to a single book, revising it over and over until it felt complete and right. I’d love to get it published one day. You can see the book here:
I spent about 5+ years in the industry working for a church, ministries, the publishing and product world, and doing freelance on the side. As I gained experience, I dreamed of running my own design studio full time and working with clients I aligned with and projects I loved and thrived in. After unexpectedly leaving my job with a baby on the way, I figured no time was better than the present. My due date was March 7, 2024 and my studio was born in September 2023.
I currently operate out of my home in Virginia and work with amazing clients, as well as teach introduction graphic design classes online for Liberty University. Good jazz music and plenty of espresso is how I like to work from day to day.
What Inspires Me
As a Christian, I firmly believe that as an image bearer of God, our Creator, I get to reflect Him in my work. I draw inspiration from nature as many artists and designers do, but also God’s Word is a source of inspiration. In addition to that, here’s a few things that inspire me:
A big book on textile design that sits on my desk.
The Magnolia Journal—Joanna Gaines, amiright?
Fun stationery, especially notebooks. My favorites are the Fringe notebooks often found at TJMaxx.
Anthropologie home decor and Free People shoes
Good fonts found in the wild, especially if they’re part of an old building, sign, etc.
Really amazing food photography, especially baked goods. I don’t know why, but a beautiful photo of a croissant or muffin just does something for me.
Lake Tahoe, San Diego, Laguna, Nashville, Franklin, and of course, home sweet home Virginia
My Design Philosophy
Good design cannot be rushed and it requires layers of work and time to come to the right solution. Often I tell my students, “Your first idea is never your best idea.” When we make time, space, and quiet to do deep creative work, strong and meaningful solutions can be achieved.
Meaningful design is incredibly important, but I also value aesthetic design. I think it’s okay to like something because it’s pretty and that’s it! Not everything has to have a 10-layers-deep concept—some things are just beautiful and meant to be enjoyed.
I incorporate these into my work by carving out time for my projects to develop strong visual solutions, especially for branding, websites, and print design. At the same time, sometimes I like to draw just for the sake of drawing, even if it doesn’t offer any value other than being cute or pretty!
Future Business Goals
Develop online courses for graphic design and/or starting a creative business
Offer beautiful stationery (notebooks, cards, etc.) with ALL the bells and whistles—foils, embossing, debossing, Spot UV, diecuts and so on
Host a quarterly in-person female creative community to spend time creating together, networking, and sharing recent work
Hire female sub-contractors to create a design studio that can produce tenfold of the work that I have the joy of working on currently
Launch templates, illustrations, fonts, textures, etc. to the design community to use for personal and commercial projects
…and the big one… publish my MFA thesis!
Morning Routine
I LOVE a hot Americano in my favorite mug from my Granny.
Protein is a must at the start of the day, so it’s usually something like scrambled eggs and/or chicken sausage with a Greek yogurt bowl of berries, almond butter, and honey.
Scripture and journaling, otherwise I won’t get to it the rest of the day.
Wake up my sweet baby!
We love to take a long walk in the morning to get some steps in and enjoy the morning sunshine.
Brush my hair, my teeth, and do a super simple make-up routine. No skincare—don’t come at me.
Get to work! This could be anything from answering student emails, grading, sending invoices, working on concepts, sketching, making mood boards, updating the website, and so on.
Fun Facts
I’m a Christian and I believe the whole Bible is true and inspired by God Himself, who created me and ordained my days before I was born.
My mountain biking, disc-golfing, STUD husband and I have been married for 5 years and we have a sweet baby boy. We got married in Virginia, lived in Franklin, TN for about 2.5 years, and moved back to Virginia to have our son. I LOVE my boys.
I am just about six-feet-tall—thankfully finding jeans has become much easier in 2024 compared to 2014. And yes, I played volleyball and basketball (that doesn’t mean I was good).
My interior design style is what I like to call vintage eclectic boho. We have a lot of beautiful vintage pieces in our home, but I love a colored boho rug, basket light, and amazing patterns. Still working on developing my home style.
My favorite color changes every day—there’s too many good ones to pick!
My childhood nicknames are Little Pink (first girl in my family) and Metunia (my dad always called me Petunia and I couldn’t say it right).
My dream vacation is staying in Lake Tahoe for one month and San Diego for one month and being outside 99% of the time. I’ve done international travel several times and, while I love traveling, I think I’d be happy to just explore all that America has to offer.
I’m a Costco and Trader Joe’s connoisseur, I make a mean açai bowl, and my birthday is in the best month: November.
