VisLink – farming and visual design

Farming and visual design working together

Having a passion for visual story telling, farming and the environment, sparked a Taranaki farmer and graphic designer with the idea to develop an easier way to explain on-farm tasks.

Gemma Adams and her husband Terry have been dairy farming together for 12 years and currently 50/50 share milk in Hawera.

Growing up Ms Adams had always been a visual learner and struggled with learning associated with reading and writing.

“For a lot of my life, I had wished I was better at reading and writing, when I was at school, I found things like dancing and sports came to me a lot easier.”

Ms Adams went on to study graphic design at University and it was not until then that she discovered she had dyslexia.

“Having things visually explained to me is a lot easier.”

After her on-farm experiences of working with her husband and staff, she found that verbal instruction often was not enough.

“Trying to explain or understand simple tasks can often be difficult especially when people perceive things differently and a farm owner or manager knows a property much better than a staff member.”

She began developing whiteboards and checklists, signs, and maps to communicate with staff provide instruction and better organise a workday. These tools proved successful not only improving efficiency and on-farm safety but also people’s confidence to carry out jobs on their own.

This sparked Ms Adams to form her business Vizlink which started operation three years ago. It now offers visual communication tools to farmers around the country, including drone mapping, whiteboard and pad maps personalised to every farming business, which can include individualised names and symbols, and much more.

“Sometimes if you have someone tell you ‘I want that fence put up in paddock 12’ – you can be left still feeling like you don’t know how to do a simple task, however having it on a map from a pull off a piece of paper can save time and mistakes.”

Environmental aspects were becoming more and more important Ms Adams said, and having all the waterways, and irrigation systems displayed on the maps was good for keeping a record of tasks happening near waterways.

Combining her passions for the agriculture industry and graphic design has been a great achievement for Ms Adams and she said she thoroughly enjoyed it, however, running her own business came with its challenges.

“We had just bought our property, had large debt, and had two young kids so I wanted to be able to add value to our farming business, so that often meant some really late nights in the office after the kids had gone to bed.”

“You always have doubt … I just had to do it and now the hard work has paid off I feel like we are just starting to climb the mountain.”

Starting her own business, she realised that it was not as easy as she thought it and her advice to others was to make mistakes and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

“I get a lot of job satisfaction knowing I am making people’s lives easier.”

Assisting her, she has a crew made up of graphic designers and communication specialists.

“Sometimes if you have someone tell you ‘I want that fence put up in paddock 12’ – you can be left still feeling like you don’t know how to do a simple task, however having it on a map from a pull off a piece of paper can save time and mistakes.”

Gemma is passionate about making farming environments safer and more user friendly through her business VizLink.