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 show the process work 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 [which was done over a period of a few months after observing Indigenous People in my life and their culture]. So, I suppose some good came out of it regardless.

initial sketches:

a sneak preview of the final design:

digital concepts and sketches:

a few points to the process to explain the visuals:

• I wanted to keep it simple and play with typography and three consecutive concepts emerged from the early sketches.

  • the first was the misshapen six, the scrambled letters, or the letters with the line through them. this told the story of lostness.

  • the second idea 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 together as a bridge to join the other letters together, which brought me to my final concept/design.