Maddie “Maddhaus” Haggbloom is a multimedia graphic designer who lives and works in Gainesville, FL. Having grown up near the Home of the Blues in Tennessee, her art and personal brand are heavily influenced and inspired by her love of music.
While studying fine art at the University of Florida, Maddhaus became enamored with the world of graphic design after exploring a course in typography. During her senior year, she became a graphic designer for the university and continues to utilize her background in traditional multimedia in her design work by incorporating painting, drawing, and other mediums. She loves exploring emotion and empathy as they relate to art and design, and she spends a lot of her time expanding her understanding of digital art through online courses. She is currently studying photography, marketing, and web development as well, as a means of rounding her expertise in design.
Maddhaus is also a freelance graphic designer, with a healthy bias towards making art for musicians, as well as an entrepreneur. She recently opened her first online art shop and has plans to branch into other areas of art business over the coming year.
Other programs I know well enough to use but not well enough to brag about: Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Portfolio, Canva, Mailchimp, Microsoft Office 365, Wix
After a year of creating, editing, and uploading over 300 art pieces, I was finally able to open my first online art shop. My next big goal is to finish this website and re-launch my social media accounts to more accurately represent my new brand.
I have always loved animated movies, to the point where my dad used to encourage me to pursue animation as a career. I became interested in animation for design while working at UFA and have loved taking online courses to learn more.
In 2021, I got the opportunity to work in the company of three highly experienced graphic designers at UF Advancement. I love being a part of their team and having so many opportunities to grow under their mentorship.
I was lucky enough to be able to work from home when the pandemic started, and during that time, I decided to delve deeper into the world of digital art. I had been keeping my design work and traditional work apart, but learning how to use Procreate made me interested in overlapping the two.
Just before graduating, I was hired as the sole in-house graphic designer for the UF Genetics Institute. It was a lovely place to work, and I still attend some of their events to visit my old coworkers.
I got my first “real” job as a sales associate for Guitar Center, and I learned a lot of valuable lessons from it. Having to talk to people all day and be a good salesperson really helped me step out of my comfort zone, and I found myself wanting to utilize my new design skills and collaborate with local musicians.
I was introduced to the world of design when I took a Typography class at UF. I have always loved interesting typefaces. I had made several traditional art pieces where I copied a few fonts by hand, but this was my first time seeing them through the lens of graphic design, and I was in trouble immediately. It wasn’t long before I was changing majors so I could learn more.
I visit my grandparents in Kentucky regularly and get to enjoy making art with both of them when I do. I learned how to build my own canvases as part of my degree, but most of my knowledge of woodworking comes from spending time with my grandpa in his shop.
When I’m not in my grandpa’s woodworking shop, I get to switch gears and learn how to make stained and fused glass with my Lala in her art studio. The weeks when I get to visit them are some of the most relaxing and creative days I have.
After a lot of difficult decision-making, I decided to go to the University of Florida to study Fine Art and become a children’s book writer and illustrator. As part of the Fine Art curriculum, I was introduced to photography as a means of documenting my work, but quickly came to appreciate it as an art form. Eventually, I would love to learn more about videography as well.
I was very fortunate to attend a high school with both an amazing choir director and a wonderful ceramics teacher. I was in choir all four years, and I took every ceramics class that was offered.
When I was about 14, my parents found a local music studio and got me a recording session for Christmas. I recorded 3 original songs and 1 Taylor Swift cover, and I drew my first logo by hand, before I fully understood what a logo was.
I’ve probably been drawing since my tiny toddler hands could hold a crayon, but I really remember falling in love with art and music when I was about six. I begged and pleaded until I got my first guitar for Christmas that year, and it was around that age when I started telling everyone I was going to be an artist when I grew up.
