Arc’teryx Week 7

My last week was bittersweet. This experience was so amazing and I couldn’t have been placed in a better practicum.

I had a couple more small assignments but the biggest thing I worked on the most during the last week was presenting a deck I put together on the best and brightest AR and 3D examples I could find, and how those ideas could be integrated in the Arc’teryx brand.

My biggest takeaway was Seans comment about how you need to take out little nuggets of information to drive home your point, especially when presenting new ideas in a corporate structure because you have to make sure the stakeholders know exactly what you’re getting at.

People on a creative team will understand and have their own opinions about what you bring forward but people who are removed from that world will fixate on things that aren’t necessarily what you want to drive home.

Doing the review was also a really nice way to summarize and have space to talk about the assignments I did and the experience at large.

I know that I’ve made connections professionally and personally that will serve me far into the future. It’ll be strange not checking in with Michael especially but I’m happy to have the time back to follow my own interests.

Despite not being able to tattoo I’ve found myself more active than I’ve been in years, more relaxed than I’ve been in years, and level headed, able to overcome adversity, and care for my family and friends, even though I have to be away from some of them physically.

I think reflecting on my experience in IDEA, what I want to do now is go back to school somewhere in Europe and do my masters. I feel there is so much more to learn, and so many more people to meet.

Thanks for everything and I hope you have a wonderful summer!!!

Nina

Arc’teryx Week 6

Week 3 of working at home is more sombre than the weeks before. The air is colder and the collective zeitgeist is sadder.

Things seem to be extending further than we originally thought they would.

No one knows when this will end. Working from home has been extended until mid-April, I think it will probably go longer. We have very little testing happening in Canada and that is the only method that will dictate who is safe to be around and who is not.

I worked on a comparison document that will be translated into other languages. It’s been interesting to have to think about other letter forms and cadences, how other languages are arranged, in comparison to English.

I’m still doing a little bit of animation and will be doing more 3D research in the coming weeks until the end of my practicum.

Thats all for now.

Arc’teryx week 5

Getting the hang of working from home finally.

Went to my studio a couple days a week and was so thankful to have another space to work in. Mentally it’s not good for me to be at home all the time.

The company is pivoting quickly to mobile & web focus to deal with the devastating effects of the virus on business.

I’ve been cooking a lot to save money & to nourish myself from the inside out.

Trying to go on walks.

Did some animation on after effects & an application called type loop for marketing research.

Nothing really else to report.

 

 

Arc’teryx week 4

Worked from home.

Developing warroom stuff for a winter campaign was fun, doing many iterations and idea generating.

Woke my roommate up with a remote meeting.

The team is well organized and I admire their ability to go on in times like these.

Stayed inside my house.

What else?

Michael dropped off a monitor for me which I’m very grateful for.

 

Arc’teryx week 3

Week 3 was the last week in office.

We had a couple meetings and things were looking gloomy on Wednesday.

Friday we made the call to stay home.

Arc’teryx Week 2

Week 2 was a lot of fun.

I got to work on the S20 t-shirt designs and got 2 designs into the next round.

Mindy, Coopers dog came in, she’s adorable and makes little growly noises and eats next to my desk. She looks like a wizard.

I got into animating in Keynote which I hadn’t done before and rebuilt a deck for a presentation to the VP.

We went out for lunch and I got a little closer to the team.

I was sick on Monday so I lost some of my momentum of the first week, so it’s really nice to want to be at the office every day I can.

Here’s the coffee machine thats makes us *FREE* coffee

 

This is the bar in the office

Here’s some stuff on my desk. Mints and face spray make me feel like I’m doing self care.

 

Til next week!!!!

 

xx Nina

Arc’teryx Week 1

Week one was a blur.

 

The first day I sat in on a 3 hour meeting. Lots of new vocabulary and product knowledge has been thrown my way. It’s been so cool to be in such a fast paced work environment.

At this moment in time I’ve been working on short leads projects, meaning smaller assignments that can be done in one or two days. These assignments are production focused and used as support for stores internationally and for events.

I’ve learned lots in the first week and am so motivated to finish things quickly and move on to the next thing.

As Sean, who brought me on, is in Japan, I’ve been working with Michael. He’s done a fantastic job of making sure I feel welcome (actually everyone has) and he’s committed to making this experience as well-rounded as possible. I’m so grateful to be at Arc’teryx everyone has made me feel welcome and valued, which is more than I could ever ask for.

 

I’ve started using Adobe Xd which has been a cool new skill to have, it’s great for creating assets for Social.

 

 

This is Charlie, Josh’s dog. She’s a sweetie. She hangs out in our department.

 

 

View of the office from the stairs.

 

 

My super official ID badge.

 

 

Until next week!!

 

xx Nina

MENTORSHIP – ALETTI

 

 

 

RESEARCH

some type samples that inspired me

I went into this mentorship really thinking I was going to be doing a blackletter font. But after my research, I realized I wanted to go another direction. On Pinterest and type foundry websites I found so many cool contemporary fonts, I had to try my hand at it.

But I still did some research on blackletter, and found the Italian blackletter Rotunda, which became my foundation for Aletti.

 

9/10

 

 

 

IDEATION

 

start of the ideation process

The Ideation period of this project was a lot of trial and error, and exploration. I went through quite a few iterations of Aletti but I think I could have explored more. I think due to the time framed I committed to my first idea I like, which is something I do frequently, where I should have experimented more.

 

7/10

 

DISTILLATION

illustrator file where I traced my drawings of Aletti

The process of distilling the shapes I wanted down once I had the shapes in Illustrator where I could really see the whole set of characters together and tweak things.

I tried fitting characters together to form words and played with the weight of the strokes and looked closer at the negative space by squinting and trying to make everything feel uniform.

 

8/10

 

REFINEMENT

 

transferring the font to Glyphs

Refining came in Glyphs quite naturally because Glyphs is made for typographers and allowed me to get rid of the extra points I had, and to smooth out the curves.

Here you can see the h before and after using Glyphs, the curve is smoothed out and still retains the nuance of the font but feels far more sophisticated.

 

9/10

 

REFLECTION

 

Working with Kenneth was great however I feel as though I feel like I learned so much through the process that this font is no longer viable. So in terms of making a project that I’m satisfied with, that didn’t happen. However, I am very thankful to have this experience so I can go forward with what I learned. I took an unorthodox approach which I now sort of regret because I probably could have learned more if I made a sans serif or something with more of a solidified history and practice.

All in all though, it was a great exercise and it was really nice to learn without the confines of the classroom and to take control of my own education.

 

Thanks Judy!!!!!

Personal Branding – Logo Sketches

This was a really fun exercise. I focused on my name and drew it in as many typefaces as I could and it was delightful. Type is something that I can look at all day. I love thinking about what influences are present in the forms, what things I associate with the typeface, how it makes me feel. My final decision was to base my logo around the changing and busy nature of my design style and use 5 different typefaces that all felt like parts of my personality.

 

Sketches are on the server 🙂

 

Personal Branding – Moodboards

I realized through making my moldboards that I have lots of diverse sources of inspiration, and some feel at odds with each other. I thought this might be a bad thing.

I think what sets me apart from others is my strange design style that is greatly inspired by all the things I find beautiful and interesting. I was raised in a house that was very fine art-centric and the walls were always full. I think this richness and closeness of different pieces of all different kinds: wall hangings, paintings, stuff I made as a kid, illustrations, etc., and this eclectic mix solidified in me a need for something I will describe as “extra”. Sometimes, perhaps often, less is more. But I feel design has been doing that for a VERY long time, the minimalism trend is a little tired and I’m excited about exploring the plurality of design and creating things that are busy & beautiful.

I contacted one of my favourite type designers/animators, and he told me that staying true to yourself and asking yourself what YOU have to offer to the design world that hasn’t been done before is how you get noticed, and how you become one of the greats. All great designers did something new by mixing together a smattering of old principles. They broke the rules, and people loved it.

So even though my process has definitely has NOT helped me in this program and has made me feel like I have no value to the design world, hearing that gave me A LOT of hope for my design practice and made me feel like I could have something to contribute to the design world.

As Nada said, a lot of what I create oscillates between soft and hard, and that rings very true to who I am, my aesthetic, and my beliefs. So I’m going to chase that.

 

 

ninachwelos_moodboards

Personal Branding – Brief

It was interesting writing a brief for my own personal branding. I often feel like my briefs are very bare boned. I don’t know if this is a bad thing necessarily, I do think it’s because I’ve only written them for myself so some things that are obvious to me I don’t include. It’s hard writing briefs!

 

 

personalbrand_brief

Brief Writing & Moodboards

ninachwelos_moodboards

personalbrand_brief

I’ve enjoyed this project so far, it’s fun to be so introspective and focus on myself and my own brand. It’s very comfortable in a certain kind of way, I feel I know myself far better than I know anything I’ve learned in this program.

It also gives me a chance to experiment and I’m very grateful for that.

Moodboards were fun to do, it’s nice to be considering my future in such detail.