our six
In 2019 I was asked to participate in Spreadshow called “Our Six,” a local design show in Saskatoon. “We are all Treaty People” is a refrain for those inside Canadian Treaty boundaries.
Participants were asked to design a logo to explore and visually portray the aspects of living within Treaty 6 territory and the process work was also to be presented next to the final artwork as a visual juxtaposition.
This project was done on a volunteer/community basis and was delayed and then cancelled due to COVID-19. Even though this project never saw the light of day, I still enjoyed the process. The process was not as simple as it may seem and I brainstormed ideas casually and in my spare time while observing and getting to know Indigenous people and culture over a period of a few months.
Initial sketches (slideshow):
skills demonstrated:
concept development and ideation, logo design, digital iIllustration, graphic design, art direction, visual storytelling
A sneak preview of the final design:
Digital concepts and sketches:
Right away, I knew I wanted to keep it simple and play with typography. I ended up with about three main concepts emerge from the early sketches.
The first idea was the misshapen six, the scrambled letters, or the letters with the line through them. This told the story of lostness. I had observed a bit of Indigenous culture around this time through friends and realized there was a lot of lost culture that most of us had no clue about.
The second idea I had was based on the quote by Dr. Gregory Cajete. In trying to illustrate the quote, some circles and half circles emerged.
The third idea was based on the definition of reconciliation (the restoration of friendly relations). Using some of the shapes from the second idea, I started to mess with shapes and letterforms and discovered that the U and I seemed to work as a bridge to join (or reconcile) the other letters together, which brought me to my final concept/design.
