Final output
Who, What, Where and Why
An introduction without words. How does one convey their story of who they are through images or symbols? My research starting point was a quadriptych (octriptych?) I was most familiar with, from Matisse’s cut-outs period. The use of symbols, colour and form all tell an abstracted story, up to individual interpretation, but when viewed together, as one, the energy and vibrancy speaks loud and clear.
Landon Metz
One Thousand and One Nights - Henri Matisse
My first draft at shaping the symbols to represent me >
Where Are You and Why Design?
As our introductory piece, we were asked to make a quadriptych. For my piece, above, I played with elements, icons, and colours that felt true to myself and where I am in my practice today.
Who | My name is Sara Russell and I’m an artist, graphic designer and brand marketing manager based in Atlantic Canada, with childhood roots in Birmingham, England.
My education and passion is in fine arts, — primarily printmaking and oil painting. My influences come from record covers, textiles, architecture movements, fashion, print media, old show posters, zines, and contemporary artists. I’m shaped by a lifetime of listening punk, disco, 60s folk, new wave, post punk, and love anything that is bold, weird, gutsy, and pushes boundaries and trends.
What | A pivotal moment in my practice was designing two street pole banners representing the community I live in — North End Halifax. This area is suffering badly from the affects of gentrification, which is displacing the very residents and communities that make the North End the vibrant, unique, and artistic community beloved by so many.
My two pieces reflected my daily morning and evening walks around the neighborhood, the still moments that truly make you feel at home. The cats you know by name, the birds you leave feeders out for, music coming from behind a garage door, and glimpses into windows and doorways.
Where | I live in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), Nova Scotia which is a beautiful and complicated place to live. My home in Mi’kma’ki is on unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.
There is so much about living here that informs my work, and pushes me to learn and appreciate what home truly means to me. It’s my duty to learn about the violent history informed by colonizers, settlers, class, poverty, the catholic church, federal and provincial government that has shaped this region, and the structures still in place today.
Why | I see graphic design as a quilt — each piece connects and represents my interests, passions, education and allows my to think creatively, and conceptually. The quilt always has room to new pieces to be added, welcomes collaboration.
The vision I have for the next step in my career and practice, is to develop a strong personal style and aesthetic that will attract like-minded clients and projects. The more you work on the quilt, the more precise your cuts and technique becomes.
Readings and lectures
I’m a huge fan of It’s Nice That, and was quite surprised to see it evolved from his own online journal as a student.
I’m really interested in data visualization, so the conversation with Stefanie Posavec allowed a peek behind the curtain in an area of design that I’d love to dig into more. She also had my absolute dream job as working as a cover designer for Penguin Books.
Of her recent works, Dear Data really stood out to me: http://www.stefanieposavec.com/dear-data
Dear Data is a year-long, analogue data drawing project between myself and Giorgia Lupi, an information designer based in New York.
Giorgia and I decided to use the language we both spoke for work - data visualisation - in order to get to know each other better, so we came up with a project we called Dear Data: a year of sending each other hand-drawn data postcards.
Every week for a year we collected and measured a particular type of data about our lives (examples include how often we laughed, the negative feelings we felt, times we were alone, our wardrobes, books, music, and so on).
