HOW WE USEDESIGN TO UNLOCKYOUR GROWTH
What’s the key to growing your customer base, your sales, your revenue, and your team?
WELL, YOUR MOM WAS RIGHT: JUST BE YOURSELF.
When your business has a strong identity and an even stronger way of expressing it visually, magic happens. Good design is about more than making things look pretty. Good design is about unlocking the truly loveably personality at the heart of your company, and letting it run free.
This is where we come in. We are “personality specialists”. We get your company. And because we get it, we can help everybody else to get it. Not only that, but we are experts when it comes to creating sales-driving tools that you can easily pick up and run with. From websites to marketing materials to logos to templates you can use and re-use, we help you to shine. In fact, you’ll shine so brilliantly that your best new customers will come running to you, not the other way around.
Our Promise
This is our promise to you: we will always show up authentically to deliver our best work. That means course correcting if we slip, practicing true accountability, and treating everyone with respect, fairness, and kindness.
We’re a fun-loving group of designers and business experts who have been working together in historic Fort Langley for over fifteen years now. We love breaking up the day with walks in the neighborhood and cuddles with our office dogs. We make the most of every day, even when things go sideways. We’re really proud of the no-BS, gossip-free, supportive environment we’ve created for ourselves.
AT FLYING HORSE, MAKING A LIVING FEELS LIKE REALLY LIVING.
How We Roll
PRESIDENT & CEO
CHRISTIE
It’s been a life-long passion of mine to create transformation, make something better, enhance the way something looks and draw attention (preferably the good kind). As a child this was through art, dreaming big dreams and imagining what could be. Now as a business owner it looks like a conversation, downloading the ideas of clients, listening to their wants, needs and understanding their vision.
If you hadn’t already guessed, horses are also a big part of my life, and the barn is where you’ll find me outside of the office. Creating a business that I love has always been grounded in living the equestrian dream and my love for horses fuels my drive to succeed in my career. Because of this I have created a schedule and work environment that fosters bringing your dog to work, an earlier start and finish to allow for more freedom after our work day and no drama. When I set out to build a business it wasn’t just about the clients it was also about the team and creating an environment that they wanted to come back to every day. After working in too many toxic environments it was a priority to ensure I never allowed for that kind of negativity in my studio and I have stuck by that.
We have the choice to create whatever we want for our lives and I am grateful for all that entrepreneurship has given me. Flying Horse Design Studio is everything I always wanted it to be and is ever evolving. I look forward to all the adventures to come, the people we get to meet and the team we get to grow. Keep connected with my team and I along the way, adventures are best with friends!
SENIOR
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
AMY
I grew up with my hands in paint and my head in the clouds. Creativity is something that came naturally to me and I can’t help but thinking in colours and images. I started with painting giant circles on paper that were layers of colours so thick that it literally melted through the pages creating holes (no, seriously, my mom saved them!) and today I’m designing websites and other visuals. My first design class was in high school, learning the basics of photoshop, and I continued learning other design programs throughout high school; I even dabbled in video animation, although it wasn’t my passion. From there I went into Marketing in University, creating a better base to understand the end goals of design, and after that, of course, I took a graphic design program at UFV.
I have been working at Flying horse since 2016 and have grown my skills exceptionally, both learning from Christie along with self-teaching. Flying Horse has been a great environment for growth and working in Fort Langley couldn’t be a nicer place to be located; who can beat all of these coffee shops!?
Outside of work I enjoy thrift shopping (I mean it’s just another way of being creative!), taking my dog Dannie for lots of hikes & adventures, reading, and hopefully soon enough, back to traveling!
SENIOR
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
EMILY
Currently on Maternity Leave
My younger self would be dumbfounded by the number of colours, mixing, layering and outside of the box thinking that I now bring to the table. I was meticulous, organizing my colouring books, only entrusting them to those that could stay inside the lines and colour a giraffe yellow, not purple!
From roots as an illustrator in Montreal, I hungered to explore. So, when I got the chance to move across Canada, I just had to do it. When I got to BC I enrolled at UFV where graphic design became my passion. In 2018 I was awarded the Salazar award for print media, and I graduated in 2020 receiving the Emerging Artist award from the Abbotsford art council shortly thereafter.
I can honestly say I love bringing people’s ideas to life in my work here at FHDS. The amazing support I get from Christie and Amy allows me the opportunity to bring those little pieces of each client that makes them special, and show it to the world.
When I am not working, I love to dance and sing to my heart’s content, and I am working on putting together an at-home screen printing studio. When I am not being artsy, I love a cup of coffee and some board games with my friends.
JUNIOR
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
ASHLEY
I was born and raised in the Fraser Valley, where I graduated with a Graphic and Digital Design Diploma from UFV in 2015. Since then, I’ve worked in various Graphic Design and Marketing roles in a corporate setting.
In 2023, I took the leap and became self-employed full-time, offering design and marketing services on a contract basis. It’s been an exciting new career journey, and I’ve loved working part-time with Flying Horse Design Studio to assist with Emily’s maternity leave!
I also own an aesthetics business out of my home, where I offer lashes and brow services to my wonderful clients.
When I’m not working, you can find me spending time with my fiancé and our rescue pup, Bucky. We enjoy taking many walks, camping, and relaxing together! I also love traveling, spending time with family and friends, taking dance classes, and I’m currently learning to golf!
JUNIOR
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
HANNAH
Ever since I was a kid, I have always been drawn to the visual arts, no matter the medium. As I grew up, the medium I worked best with would change, but I would always enjoy creating art. When I was in Grade Five, I learned about the career of graphic design thanks to a school project (And I still have this project too!). Since then, I have always known that I would like to pursue this career path while still doing what I love.
I was fortunate enough to pursue my love and passion for design in UFV’s graphic and digital design major where I only further fell into my love for design. Throughout my time with UFV GDD, I learned about the powerful impact of our design work and discovered my love for colourful, typographic and illustration-based media where I was awarded an honourable mention for logo design in the RGD Student awards. I first met Christie in 2022 during my first-ever portfolio review where her valuable, industry knowledge helped shape my work. Later on, when I got the chance to complete a practicum with FHDS I couldn’t say no! And let’s just say I immediately fell in love with the environment and work that FHDS was doing. When I am not designing, I can be found fulfilling my reading obsession, baking, camping or cuddling with my dog.
DIRECTORS OF
GREETINGS (DOG)
DANNIE & KENNY
Dannie and Kenny are Formosan Mountain Dogs that came all the way from Taiwan in the fall of 2019. They love warning us of incoming intruders and battling each other while we’re deep in concentration on our work. The highlight of Dannie’s day is grabbing her stuffed hedgehog from excitement when her other best friend, Fender, shows up for work! While Kenny’s highlight is going for walkies at lunchtime or the field during the Summer.