Kira Vlietstra

art and design blog

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Continued Poster Designs

[kira-art-design]

Local Arts Scene Poster

The Brief

The goal of this poster design is to attract younger generations of creators to come to Medicine Hat and keep the art scene thriving! Whether that be art shows at the local galleries or collaborating with other artists, working in new media, creating events, etc.

My Thoughts

In order to attract people to your area, you need to show them the potential and what makes you unique! I haven't lived in Medicine Hat for too long but in my 3 years here I've noticed the very unique historical architecture, and the naturally gritty aesthetic of the city. This is used in so many locaI businesses and branding in the city, it's embracing what's here and the potential in it.

I wanted to showcase this in my design. I knew I wanted to play with some collaging and photo editing so I headed down to Medelta to take some photos of the kilns. I needed to convey something exciting going on, that could be showing that potential for new creatives and what mediums they might be interested in. I thought of a projected display, however when it came to getting this done I wasn't prepared with equipment and had any experience in doing these. I decided to take another route of making this image, by collage!

"create in the hat"

This is my idea for the main message on the poster. It's simple and explains the need for creatives, but leaves it open to any mediums. I enjoy since moving here that the locals and surrounding area call the city "The Hat."

Making Graphics

Using the photos I shot, I began playing with them in photoshop, first making a colourful collage of an entire landscape. This is a cool photo, however it was getting too busy for the poster design and wasn't great for fitting both the typography and all the logos.

I wanted to try making the photo look more illustrated. I discovered an interesting filter, this gave the images a high contrast, outlined illustrative look. I had the idea to print this on my recycled kraft paper, which turned out aesthetically so beautiful!

I took photos of these prints overtop of a sky painted piece of board I had laying around. I decided I liked this much better than the digital collage. I was excited to start placing typography over top!

Final Designs

Overall I'm excited about my final designs, but I'm not super proud of the stage they are at right now.

After seeing these in mockup's I realized the ripped paper sort of resembles Medicine Hat's beautiful cliffs (which actually surround Medelta)

I've reached my photo limit, more on the next post!

[kira-art-design]

Art and Design Recruitment Poster

The Brief

The goal of this project was to design a recruitment poster for the Art and Design program at Medicine Hat College (the program I'm currently finishing this year.)

My thoughts

To begin this design, I needed to go through a process of ideation and dissecting this poster's purpose. This will help me create a design with motive and that feels complete.

This poster's goal is to entice the audience and excite potential students about what the program offers. It needs to communicate something that inspires someone, or resonates with them, to make them feel discovered and accepted, and that this program is a good fit for them. The audience isn't only young high school students, we have a diverse range of people who join, this needs to be kept in mind for the message.

Fun Fact!

I found this program from a recruitment poster hung in my highschool's art room. The design "made me think", and looked so visually pleasing, it felt like something I was already so interested in. When I came to orientation a few years later, I saw that poster hanging in the design room, along with all the program's recruitment posters. My hopes would be to create a design that did the same thing for another student.

First Ideas

I needed to come up with a message, what do I want to communicate? Sometimes this part of a design, specifically a poster, comes to me slower. I can always get visual ideas immediately, but as for my abilities with making playful connections between the words and the content can take me some time.

I began with brainstorming cliche things I've heard in my own experience as an artist. These didn't communicate as clearly as I had hoped, and the tone didn't feel right. I enjoy posters with jokes like this, and funny remarks but I couldn't achieve the same communication.

So I moved on, and began playing with making graphics that unrealistic and playful images. I was interested in showcasing the programs diversity of learning experience: combining the fine arts and design.

Focusing the Design

I didn't feel like any of my first ideas felt complete or the right tone I wanted. I had ideas about conveying the feeling of dreaming/fantasizing a future for yourself in the art/design world. This is because before coming here, in my hometown this world felt completely imaginative, and no one knew a thing about it. It’s hard to discover a fitting career when you have barely any insight into it’s existence. As well as the stigma around pursuing an art or design career, the misconceptions about the lack of jobs, opportunity and responsibility. I wanted to communicate that there is a future here, and it’s achievable.

So, the art studio set popped into my brain. It communicates the idea of a self-made or created reality, like imagining one’s future. It resembles the art studios on campus, and highlights the diversity in mediums we work with; both fine art and digital design. I wanted to continue with a theme I’ve been interested in this year, vernacular thinking by using what resources you have. In times of a pandemic, and being a broke student it is necessary to use what you have, and be resourceful. Therefore, I used only scraped paper on my desk that already has been cut or too wrinkled for my printer and tools I already own to construct the set.

Taking Photos/Making Graphics

I continued with a theme I've been interested this year; using vurnecular thinking specifically to use materials accessible to me. In times of the pandemic, and being a broke student is the necessity to do with what you have. To embrace this theme, I used only scrap paper from my desk that I've already cut from, or wrinkled too much for my printer.

I took photos with a borrowed camera (thank you friends! - a pro of being apart of this program, it feels like a community, we support each other and I've met wonderful friends.)

I played with different placement, angles and base patterns. I then photoshopped the background out, making a graphic looking photograph of the paper studio.

Final Poster Designs

Overall, I’m excited about the visual aesthetics and typography of this poster. However I always feel my abilities with connecting between the graphics and words could be improved to make the message the most impactful it can be. I played around with slightly different variations of phrasing, undecided on which communicates best.

To reveal/expose this poster as a work in progress I kept my grid in the final design. This was a connection that designing the poster itself was made and designed by someone, and as part of the program itself.

Having Fun

These are just a couple fun compositions I put together because I enjoyed these photos I took. It’s so fun to play with colour, type and image together, when they fit well together it creates a strong final piece.

[kira-art-design]

Packaging Design

For this project I focused on sustainability, accessibility and multi-functional design. My idea was to make a solution for my own example of bad design, specifically for pens. This approach to packaging is very wasteful, inaccessible and possibly dangerous. 

To get started I spent some time researching other designer’s sustainable solutions. I knew right away for this project I would love to make home-made paper, I’ve wanted to make this forever and now this project was perfect for it. I decided that was the best option for material, it’s repurposing paper material that has been used once already. Starting the design with a repurposed material completes the palimpsest thinking behind the multifunctional use of material. 

Palimpsest 

This packaging will serve another purpose after it’s first use, becoming 2 “to do” list sheets. Then the customer can repurpose this as a helpful product for their newly purchased pen to write on! This leaves almost no waste after opening the product, and the paper could be further recycled. 

My Ideas

Right away when I thought about accessibility I thought of a round, cylinder shape that could easily tear away to open. This would be a simple, one motion action to get the product from inside. 

Next, I needed to come up with a second use for the packaging material... could it be related to the product it’s selling? What is something handy I always use? To do lists! I write out to do lists everyday, about anything I need to do whether its school, cleaning the apartment, working on projects, etc.

These were my first ideas of how to approach the rolled package, possibly using a few sheets and not knowing how to close it together! 

My Process

First I began the process of making my own paper, I chose to get this started right away to allow time for trial and error it takes to get it right. I purchased some affordable materials from Dollarama and tried to find as many things around my house I could utilize. I collected scrap paper both colourful and old schoolwork. 

Making the paper was fun and very interesting trying to figure out the best weight. I enjoyed experimenting with colour and adding in textures like dried flowers just for fun. 

While in the paper-making process I began figuring out the dimensions and functionality of my packaging with construction paper. I figured this was the closest texture of paper to the home-made sheets. The design became more complicated once I realized I need to somehow close the ends of a cylinder, and in a way that still allows my packaging to function the way I planned. 

I first tried some foldable circles attached to the entire piece of paper, but these looked very unfinished and had no good way of attaching to the package. I also tried making small cuts along the edge so when it was rolled they folded inwards. I came up with a better solution, a cap, that attached on the inside layer once package was rolled up. This looked the cleanest and hold in the pen inside. 

Once my sheets were made, I needed to print on them. The printer was able to grab them much easier if the raw edges were cut, there is the pile of left-overs after cropping a few sheets. These scraps could be re-purposed into more paper pulp. 

Here is the design printed on my paper, it was so exciting to see on the texture of the paper and it achieved an aesthetic I really enjoy. However, my hopes and dreams for my paper were a bit disappointed as I quickly found out it didn’t like to bend and form into the shape of the package. The perforations I made tore while I was struggling to assemble the small design. I learnt from this and tried to perforate with larger spaces on the next trials. 

I also noticed from the process of putting it together, from all the cutting, perforating, folding and rolling it wore off the ink so on the finished design it’s not very legible and the graphic of the pen was ruined. If this product was mass produced this could be resolved with better quality ink, or a coating. 

Here  is the final design I used for printing, I kept a few guidelines but adjusted their opacity very low so they weren’t noticeable on the packaging. 

Here is one half of the to-do lists printed on the inside of the package, for customers to use with their newly purchased pen! This serves a second purpose and leaves less waste, and could even be further recycled. 

After making 2 trials of the packaging assembly with the homemade paper, I wanted to see if I could get a cleaner and more functional result with store bought paper. This is recycled KRAFT brown paper made from paper bags, so it is still a sustainable material compared to new paper. It was easier to assemble, and the result stayed together much better. 

Again, the ink was worn off quite a bit from putting it together but I do like how it turned out! There is definitely the human touch visible in my packaging prototypes, I really enjoy that aesthetic but to be sold in stores it would be interesting to see the result if it were made in a factory. 

I cut the perforation lines by hand using my exacto-knife. They ripped well, and I enjoy the rough around the edges look.  

Reflection

Overall I’m excited about my results and my design idea. To be honest while working on this assignment, I became so aware of how our mass produced packaging is designed to be wasteful or could have much better functionality. I already felt so angry with our habits of wrapping basically every product we sell in layers and layers of plastics, for shipping and for display. I worked at a retail store and experienced unwrapping all these layers of thick plastic just for shipping purposes, and the companies complete disregard for what happens to that material after. 

If we approached packaging in this more sustainable and multifunctional way we could make such a large difference. While researching, I found an interesting fact that I incorporated in the package, to keep customers conscious of their impact. 40% of plastics produced are used for packaging and are made to be discarded. There is so much wasted opportunity here. 

Another cool thing I learnt, during a progress critique we talked about refillable pens! Which I did not know existed, so knowing that now this package would make the most sense to be selling a refillable pen, to minimize as much waste a possible. I may purchase one soon, but I’m not sure if I trust myself not to lose it.

I had so much fun making this, I’ve always loved building, assembling and figuring out dimensions to make projects or mini houses! It reminds me of the pond boats I used to make with popsicle sticks, cardboard, duct tape, etc. (sorry mom for the drill holes in the kitchen table) 

[kira-art-design]

Good and Bad Packaging

In preparation for our next project in Applied Design, we discussed our examples of both good and bad packages. Considering sustainability, accessibility and overall design here are my examples:

Bad Design

Everyone has interacted with packaging like this, the hard thin plastic layered over the cardboard back. This packaging design is used for a large variety of products for example toys, makeup, toiletries, office supplies, etc. It displays well in stores and show’s the products clearly to customers. We need to consider how usable this packaging really is to those customers, and is there a more sustainable solution? Would this packaging be functional for customer’s with physical disabilities? Does the packaging serve a multi-functional purpose or is it made to discard?

Considering these ideas this package design is surprisingly problematic. The amount of one-use plastic is very wasteful. I did some research later in my project, discovering 40% of plastic produced is for packaging and meant to be used once, then discarded. The hard plastic is almost impossible to get through without using a tool and once cut it’s very sharp and hazardous. This isn’t accessible to anyone below average physical ability. 

Good Design 

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Throwback project! 

Recently using aftereffects I’ve been reflecting on my process of learning video, I remember being so excited to create this first project for a video class in 2019, because I got to layer sound and typography and use editing to create a completed piece. I’ve done so much video work since then but it’s fun to look back at simpler projects I was so excited about! 

This project didn’t begin with a very developed narrative but in reflection I thought it has a relatable experience in it, children can have quite a fascination with romance and sexuality and imagining their future selves pursuing those experiences. So my stuffy Hippie,  was that imagined experience of having a first kiss. Did it go well? Was it too soon? Why did they leave after? What started it? Where they on a date? I like the cut-out context  to fully understanding the interaction between me and hippie. Is it a love story or is it a more modern experience of a non-committed attraction? 

[kira-art-design]

People in This City

Leonard Cohen Animated Poem

I’m in the process of learning AfterEffects, so here is a longer project I made based off Leonard Cohen’s poem “People in This City.”

I built a cardboard city set and used real snow to make a world to animated on top of. I recorded myself walking in snow, and layered in some other music and city ambience. I also created some paper furniture to animate inside the apartment windows. This project was so fun and I still have so much to learn in After Effects, I’m excited for my next work! 

My Process

Using gouache paint I made some concept art to get down my ideas and overall gloomy feeling of the set. 

On my kitchen table, I used my recently purchased vacuum box to construct the whole set! I’m obsessed with corrugated cardboard texture and found a way 2 years ago how to wet the material then peel away the layers to reveal the corrugated layer.

Storyboarding and generating ideas to animate with the footage of the set. I made connections to lines of the poem to best illustrate the story. 

Paper furniture I cut out in photoshop to animate. 

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Branding and Project Reflection

Visual Identity

In my style guide post I briefly defined what it's purpose is, and what a visual identity is. I will elaborate on this, and how I related it to my project. The visual elements that make up an identity usually are a logo, typeface, colour palette and set of rules of how to use all of these elements together. Why is a visual identity important? The consistent, and coordinated visual structure helps the consumer identify the organization's products or services, and help express the organizations personality.

My visual identity was developed from reflection of my past work, and the visual elements I'm confident with using, my natural habits of composition and emphasizing my expiremantation with colour. I found a way to express my recent goals in design and my own style habits in a cohesive design plan. I made a set of elements I can re-arrange in so many ways but still be cohesive with the visual identity. For example this logo/name image I just re-arranged from the design I used in my branding style guide.

Branding

In Visual Communication Design: An Introduction to Design Concepts in Everyday Experience, by Meredith Davis and James Hunt, it's clarified that branding is not the same as an identity system. Branding is all about the ways an organization communicates, interacts and builds a relationship with it's consumers. This proves it's values, and is more honest than it's visual identity.

I didn't have a defined personal brand yet, but I was still an individual working for a client and performed my work with certain standards, expression and relationship with the clients. From these experiences I've been developing more professional habits and defining what my values are as a brand.

Self Branding 

For my self branding project I created 3 of these values, however I was a bit unsure of what I should evem define. I focused on my ideas about continual learning and discovering my own artisitc message and my personal growth goals. I realize now I could also define more professional standards, about material, service, product quality, etc.

From the textbook mentioned above, Aline Wheeler explains that organizations achieve branding by making touch point connections to consumers by interaction that is not strictly visual. I brought in a fun way of interaction with clients by creating an activity/utiity out of my business card design by making removable compostion cropping Ls.

Final Reflection

I’m excited about this project! I think it was made the most intuitively, I let myself just do what popped in my mind. I made a product and complete identity to summarize my own developing style in graphic design that has slowly come together in my third year. I learnt about myself as a designer/artist and got to do some great reflection on my work. This project has definitely been helpful preparation of pursuing my own professional career after graduation.

The design itself, I worked on a couple things I’ve struggled with in graphic design. Even though this project is vibrant in colour, it’s simple. I worked on stripping down my layout, and giving elements room to breath. Examples: the front of my business card is just 1 shape, and the back only 3 lines of type, a line and name. The brand style guide layout is also fairly simple, every 4inch section has a minimal structure. In past projects I’ve struggled with stripping down my visual elements like this. It was also successful by balancing the minimal structure with bright and bold shapes. 

I still have to be a bit more conscious of size when it comes to printing, because again with this project I printed my brand style guide too large it didn’t look quite right. I actually designed the original design one sided so it ended up ridiculously long (24 in!!) I went to Boylans to get it printed, then found out that it wasn’t able to print double sided (I had planned on the back being solid colour) I realized then the whole design must be inappropriately large. I went home and over lunch hour I redesigned it double sided and 16 inches long (3 folds) to be brought back to print before my next class. Somehow I always end up needing to “run back” and correct something before printing. That is something I will work on on my next projects. 

I was so excited about my idea for the business cards! I was very inspired by a lecture we had on vernacular design, which is about using what you have and what you know. It’s about using home/local materials to produce your product because in nature it will be relevant or emphasize your product. My idea to crop the edges for utility wasn’t exactly vernacular but the experimental products created by vernacular design impacted how I thought about my approach. I thought the idea of a self identity product having utility or interaction was genius! It sort of proves your ability as a designer to have your own self promotion products to have an extra layer of design. I thought the composition cropping tools were a perfect fit for my experience as an art and design student.

Overall I’m proud of my completed project but also know this is just a beginning of my own work and I have lots to learn! I’m seeing this self brand developing from here and I got it started true to me! In my first year I had too many expectations for what professional graphic design should look like, but after that year I’ve been slowly learning to bring my expression in fine arts into digital and it’s been a game changer. 

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Portraits

Last week I got to use the lighting studio! Here are 3 different lighting setups:

Rembrandt

Split

Paramount

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Self Branding Logo

My Brand

My self brand is “kira jean” art and design, I chose to go with a very simple name because anything more complicated didn’t fit right. My last name is long and hard to spell (Vlietstra) so I decided to change to my middle name! 

Background

My logo comes from a doodle I’ve been sketching for awhile, he’s a symbol that represents chaotic, wiggly humans but also not much at all. He’s a flexible and non-defined character that can take shape in any colour, format, medium, etc. My friends recognize this as a symbol that represents me because I tend to include it in a variety of my work or social media posts I’ll hide him somewhere in the photo. 

This year I decided to bring him into my GIF series project in Interactive, where he came to life and discovered some things about our world.

Symbolism and Interpretation 

Last year I learnt about semiotics, what is a symbol and how is it interpreted. Designers have to be particularly conscious about this and understand how a symbol, sign or image is interpreted in context, to the viewer and how a viewer’s own experience might impact their own interpretation of your design. 

When I think about what my logo symbol of the “wiggly man” means to me, it’s doesn’t represent another image but more of an idea. To me there’s an interesting phenomenon in being human where we all can understand each other’s feelings, actions and behaviours because we are all human no matter the cultural context. Of course there can be different meanings of expression tied to emotion in different cultures but overall we all feel happy, sad, angry, excited, etc. We all grow up, we all have relationships, we all make mistakes and share all of it in this chaotic mash of culture. I think of my wiggly man representing that idea and to be flexible and relatable to anyone. He doesn’t have defined shape, texture or colour he’s just living his wiggly life wherever he wants. 

When I consider how another person would interpret my wiggly man symbol, I think there is enough lack of characteristics that it mostly stands alone, representing a human figure. There could be associations with other human figure symbols such as restroom signs, other companies logos or artwork. But the symbol isn’t tied to much cultural or political value. It will be interesting to hear what people’s associations might be or ask what a person relates it to!

Process

Here is some process I went through deciding how to make him balanced. I first tried the golden ratio, but decided with my square business cards and overall how I planned to design my type around him that he would work better as a square. I tried this next and I was happy with it! I tried a few different poses of his arms, but he can always be flexible and move his arms around in different projects. 

I also threw in a random “k j” design just to abbreviate kira jean, and bring in the hand drawn type. This was for fun and is a nice little extra design I can incorporate on my products. 

[kira-art-design]

Self Branding Style Guide and Contract

What is a Style Guide?

For any brand identity design a style guide is a tool made for the brand to understand the elements such as the typography, colours, logo, icons, brand values, and how to use those elements to create more content that fits with the brand’s visual identity. It’s important to maintain a cohesive visual identity because overtime people start to recognize it and make the association to your brand, and it communicates the brands personality and the type of work, product or service you provide.

How did I develop my brand visual identity? I started by reflecting on my own work, my fine arts, graphic design, video, photography, motion graphics, etc. What does my work look like? Is there any consistencies or styles I use often? How can I translate my brand personality through visual style?

Here is a small collection of a couple documents and works I’ve done this semester that show a peek of my style, layout and colours I gravitate to. I thought it would only make sense to develop my self branding style from here, as I’ve been developing a personal style in my work especially this year. 

Planning

To plan my brand style guide I looked on Behance at other designer’s work to get an idea of what to include and how they organize it all. I made a rough sketch of how I wanted to lay it all out. I decided on a long format with 4 inch sections that would be folded to break it up. 

This is a new printing layout than I’ve done before, I’ve done quite a few book designs in the last couple years so I wanted to do something a bit different. I also thought this would read better online as well. 

InDesign Layout

I added paper texture just for mockup purposes, I didn’t print it like that, to me it makes the design feel more real and complete. 

#gridlife

I prefer to make my grid within the margins and I made it work out well for the 4 inch sections, having 5 rows fit into each. I couldn’t imagine designing any document without a grid!

Content

Now let’s breakdown what’s even in my style guide! I decided to include:

Bio

I gave a brief background to my work, and highlighted what kind of mediums I work with. I’m interested in everything from painting, graphic design, video, photography, motion graphics and sometimes sculpture. 

Brand Values

I made my values fairly general and big picture because I’m still very open to what I will pursue professionally, so I made goals to continue learning and work on developing a stronger artist’s message. 

Logo

I showed where my logo came from, and how I made it into a more balanced design within a square guide. My logo is intentionally flexible, so there wasn’t many “rules” t define on how to use it, I showed some possible colour options but there really is no limitation of colour, texture and format! I will break down my logo developing process more in my next post. 

Colour Palette

I collected a group of colours that are taken from past projects, I seem to keep gravitating to similar colours as these and always combining them in different ways. I’m not afraid of colour and somehow always end up with quite colourful pieces. I included the hex numbers for each colour, because in a brand style guide it’s supposed to help future designers or employees keep consistent design for new content.

Iconography

I included a couple simple illustrations/symbols that I’ve used in the past for portfolio and work term projects. I thought they were very helpful for organizing my different types of work: video/photography, digital, and painting. 

Typography

I chose 2 typefaces that would be used for different hierarchy of information. I defined a header, sub-header and body typeface and size. I first chose Cooper for the headers, for some reason I’ve been OBSESSED with Cooper this year. There’s something I really enjoy about it’s balance between quirky, retro, clean and balanced design. Then I paired it with a san serif, Avenir. I recently discovered this typeface and have found it really clear and legible for smaller information and pairs well with Cooper. I also included a hand-drawn version of cooper, this year I’ve been really enjoying incorporating hand-drawn typography in my projects. 

Contract

Graphic Designers of Canada Sample Contract

This is the first page of my contract, I based it off the Graphic Designers of Canada sample contract for the content and general layout. I made it in my own brand style, including my logo, cold colours, typography and structure of all my elements. 

Here is my third page, where I start the terms and conditions. The layout continues the same for the last 2 pages, just clarifying more term and condition topics. These are all borrow from the sample contract, in the future when I need to make my own contract I will write it all myself. 

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Self Branding Business Cards

Ideas

This year we learnt about vurnecular design. I really loved the idea of using what you have and what you know, by connecting your design and final product with your experience. However while I have tons of hoarded material I didn’t have much to make the cards with that would be enough. Here is my solution:

My Design

I wanted to design my card to have some sort of utility/ user experience that made it more than just a piece of paper with my name on it. hey! composition frames! I came up with the idea to make the perimeter’s removable (perforated or cut lines) to then make a set of mini composition frames. I was taught a technique of using 2 ‘L’ pieces of paper, to crop out compositions in real life to use for still life studies or just composition practice. Every artist and designer makes compositions, and this would be a fun interaction for anyone to have fun and see what they can find. After all my work is very inspired by my everyday experiences, so this connects my inspiration to my business cards and the viewer. Since I was young I would either use a camera or just imagine capturing compositions anywhere, outside, in my room, a close up texture, etc. 

I measured out starting with 3 inches, and figured out how thick my cropped L’s should be, where they were strong enough to be functional but not take off too much space for the middle information. I went with a half inch for the width of the cropping Ls. 

Final Print Design

Giving a hint in how the cropping pieces function, I put a hashtag on the top “#find a composition” which could be used for people to post their compositions online! If that were to take off that would be so fun to see what everyone’s up to. 

I had fun making a hand-written version of cooper, the typeface I chose to be primary in my self branding project. 

I kept all the information and logo inside the cropped edges so there was still a functional business card after removing the cropping tools. 

Cropping!

Here is the unperforated version, I ordered a perforated and unperforated sheet from the local print shop just to see what works better. 

(yes there is a lot of dried glue left on my cutting matte from collaging)

Finding compositions behind my desk!

Perforated

Here is the perforated version. I debated whether to buy a perforation tool myself and do it by hand, or get the print shop to do it. I determined it was cheaper to leave it to the print shop for the assignment, but they did make an error by perforating all the lines through to the corners, so I had to carefully tear them only on the edges I wanted. For my actual business cards I will perforate them by hand myself. 

I like the look of the texture of the perforation, makes it a bit more real and feel more genuine. I think having the perforation would also be more of a hint and guide to the audience of the purpose of the cropping Ls. 

Finding compositions above my desk of my baby spiders! 

I printed a variety of colours from my self branding palette. It would be fun to print with a variety of textures as well because my work is very diverse in mediums. 

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my work?

As my last year in the Art and Design program at MHC is coming to be 1 semester left, I am in the beginning stages of planning what I will do and where I will go after I’m graduated. As an artist/designer this can be a very intimidating question, or just confusing to even know where to start! 

From guidance of my instructors in the past 3 years I’ve discovered I’m very interested in pursuing an “artist in residency” experience. Either I will continue more education through an institution for painting/art history while focusing lots of my time in studio practice, maybe building a body of work. I also want to get a job in the digital world - something in graphic design, motion graphics, web design, or video. But! I have been looking into applying for residencies, so what is that?  A residency is when an artist applies to a residency program located usually in a remote country, where a group of artists are excepted. The artists can be from anywhere in the world, work with a range of mediums (print making, ceramics, painting, design, etc.), and in all different stages of their artistic career. 

Anyway. If I’m interested in applying for these things I’ve come to the question -

In the residencies I’m interested in I want to explore my painting. here do I want to go in my painting? What has my work been about so far? Where does it go after instructional direction? What do I want to explore?

Here is a few things I jotted down while I tried to dissect what I’ve been painting about in the past couple years. Why do I search in the areas that I do for inspiration? I seem to come back to nostalgia, and extracting images/forms I’m inspired by in my daily activities. I love going for walks, and never forget my camera. I’ve always had an interest in cropping compositions I see as I walk, trying to capture colour, shape or texture. Then I collect all these images and have been mashing em all up. I LOVE COLLAGE. I do, I love taking away context from images and putting them all in new context, and embracing the 2 dimensional frame. I have been trying to strip away my pre-concieved expectation for what an image should look like, how it should be realistically rendered or where it should exist in a frame. I’ve been very inspired by DADAism - an art movement focused on approaching art with a child-like mentality - not crowded with influenced ideas and expectations. 

I’ve also been interested in the relationship between digital and fine arts. I’ve been really delving into graphic design, motion graphics, photography and video - and I try to come into those projects with a fine arts perspective. I want to bring all my elements from my fine arts into the digital world, specifically to push composition and colour. 

This has been a great area to explore this year, as my education is all taking place online, in everything I make I consider how does it transfer to digital? How is it received? How do I need to adjust my process to fit this online format? 

So. I’m taking all these ideas floating around right now and making plans for my path after graduation. I’m so excited for my exploration! 

[kira-art-design]

Sneaky Peaky

A sneak peak background painting for an animation project coming soon! This scene is inspired by my “night walks” (6 pm in November in Alberta) when it looks like a foggy blue world.

[kira-art-design]

Night Photography

Last Saturday I volunteered at a local film festival that was held at a local theatre downtown Medicine Hat, called The Monarch. Before the films began I took some quick photos out front, playing with a long shutter speed to capture streaked car lights in the foreground!

[kira-art-design]

Paper Travels GIF

I designed this GIF in Photoshop using my own photographs, and collaging together with digital illustrations. I made this fun little stop motion set using scrap paper and cardboard materials I had shoved in the drawers of my desk! I’ve always got tons of random material laying around that I can work with.