Haylee is a graphic designer and brands strategist who broke away from her 9-5 to create something that would set her soul on fire, and thus, her brand strategist and design brand was born. Through crafting compelling stories, lots of research, and meticulous design, she helps build brand stories from the ground-up. She also founded The Committee, a community focusing on love for small boobs + creating a body-positive counter-culture. Created from a dark and painful season, The Committee shares Haylee’s story of FDA recalled breast implants and breast implant illness. Through both of these business ventures she creates community, shares her passions, and spreads awareness.

The Basics:

Hometown: Denver, Colorado
Current city: Denver, Colorado
Alma mater: University of Colorado - Denver
Degree: BFA, Fine Art + Digital Design
Very first job: Cleaning up trash at Water World!
Hustle: Brand Strategist + Designer; Founder, The Committee

The Interests:

Babe you admire and why?
I admire so many women; I could go on and on about female musicians I love, or even Oprah—but they aren’t nearly as inspiring as my Grandma Cheryl. She has inspired me so much, and she even helped shape the path I ended up taking as a designer. She spent her time raising three kids and being an artist; she was a sculptor and focused mostly on the human form in her work. She often sculpted other women—voluptuous women or “small” women, she’s made them all. She also has this grounded sense that I’m really confused about most days. (How the hell did you get so grounded, Grandma?!) She’s always inspired me with her humor through tough situations, and her willingness to think outside of the box. She doesn’t take herself too seriously. What a bad bitch, eh?

A skill you’d like to learn one day?
I’d love to learn to be a better painter!

Favorite fictional female character?
Mrs. Maisel. She’s funny and completely owns who she is.

What’s your go-to road trip album?
I love a good road trip. I recently went out and lived a short nomad life for a few months. My go-to road trip songs were “Corpus” by By Atta Boy, “I am California” by John Cragie, “Beauty of the Road” by Future Islands and “Parted Ways” by Heartless Bastards.

The Hustle:

Tell us about your hustle.
I usually split my time between my work with The Committee and my brand strategy and design business. You can find me answering a lot of emails, having client meetings, researching and creating brand strategies or designing brand guidelines, logos, and working on developing the perfect color palette.

For those who aren’t familiar, what is The Committee + what inspired it?
The Committee is a community that focuses on love for small boobs, creating a body-positive counter-culture, and my story with FDA recalled breast implants and breast implant illness. The Committee was born out of a dark and painful season in my life. As I faced breast implant illness and recalled implants, I made the hard decision to get an explant. I knew an explant was the only answer to relieve my breast implant illness symptoms, and I knew I could not risk getting Breast Implant-Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma. Although the answer was clear and I knew I needed to get an explant for my health, this decision brought up a lot of pain that I had experienced in my life as it related to my small boobs. As an artist, I make things to process through my experiences. I sat down before my explant surgery and asked myself, "Is there any way that I can make this difficult experience just a little funny?" The reality was that this situation—the explant, the cancer risk, unattainable beauty standards, and the debilitating pain that I was experiencing from breast implant illness—was dark. I designed the Classic Itty Bitty Titty Committee design for myself. It was funny, and it did make this experience lighter. A few of my friends asked for it on shirts, and then their friends asked for one, and it spread like wildfire.

What do you do to make sure your creative juices are always flowing? Where do you look for inspiration?
I get a lot of inspiration from music. Recently I’ve even been taking a stab at writing my own music, which has helped me be creative. I look to other designers for inspiration, art and lyrics via Pinterest, Behance and more! I am always, always studying good design—you can even catch me staring at labels in the grocery store for inspiration.

How have your past professional and academic experiences and lessons prepared you for the work you do today? How have they not prepared you?
Yes, I’ve learned so much since college, and I feel like I soak up so much from each professional experience I have. I learned how to take criticism on my design work, and how to create conceptual work, in college. In the professional world, I learned how to deal with clients and people of all different backgrounds. I also learned how to go off on my own and create my own job, which has been rewarding!

How has being a woman impacted your professional experiences? What can we collectively do to support and empower women in your industry today?
Being a woman has impacted my professional experience a lot. I am still unlearning a lot about what we are taught in our culture: say sorry often even when you aren’t at fault, laugh at inappropriate jokes to make others feel comfortable, don’t cry at work, etc. I really eliminated these issues by being my own boss and talking about the things that I wanted to talk about. What you and I can do to support and empower women is to allow them to have a voice, acknowledge their struggles and validate them—and ask our male counterparts to do the same.

Beauty standards are a constant challenge that women face daily. What’s a piece of advice you’d give to someone struggling to feel body positive?
Oh, tell me about it. I made a whole community to talk about these issues. I’m still learning how to operate in a world that has the objectification of women baked into everything we consume, see and do. It’s important to remind women that they aren’t meant to live up to beauty standards, and in the end, it’s a big waste of time. I think feeling body neutral is better than being body positive at times. Body Neutrality is the idea of accepting your body in its current state; that you should focus on the things that your body DOES, and not focus so much on what your body looks like. We have so much more to live for than the pursuit of a “perfect body.”

What’s one thing you’re proud to have accomplished in your career thus far?
I am very proud that I’ve taken all of my branding expertise and my personal pain to create a community that gives women a voice against toxic beauty standards.

Who are some women in your field that you look to for inspiration?
I don’t have many of these in the body positive community or design community. I am mostly inspired by female musicians, spiritual leaders and authors. Laura Marling, Liz Cooper, Oprah and Elizabeth Gilbert—to name a few.

What forms of self care do you actively practice on a day-to-day basis?
EFT Tapping and Gratitude practice are my favorite self care and mental health activities! I also love getting exercise and really appreciate a good HIIT session for all that it does to my mental health. Playing my guitar is also an act of self care.

Career and/or life advice for other babes?
Keep going. Keep going even when the path isn’t totally clear. You don’t have to have all of the answers right now. Keep moving forward and things will be revealed to you as you go!

Connect with Haylee:

Branding + Design Website / Instagram
The Committee Website / Instagram

This interview has been condensed and edited.

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