Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Xd, Figma
2022
As a young Canadian immigrant, listening to survivors’ stories and journeys inspire me to create and evolve as a designer and human. These stories delineate strength, resilience and hold such power in human history. Alas, the reality is, these stories have been left unspoken and handled with hate or falsely. As a creator and war survivor myself, I feel the desperate need to shine a light on and spread awareness of survivors’ truth.
I want to spark conversations about the different realities and struggles of people who have experienced many traumatic events in their lives and recognize the value and importance that they bring to the world.
Goal Statement
Create a platform and safe place for survivors to express and share their art and story.
Target Audience
This project targets youth and adult immigrants and trauma survivors.
Research Question
How can young Canadians utilize creativity and storytelling to help heal civil war related traumas?
Canada’s 2016 survey shows that more than 80,000 immigrants are working in professional and technical occupations in arts and culture across the country. 1 in 4 people employed as an artisan or craftsperson.
Over a quarter of theatre, fashion, exhibit and other creative designers, which makes them 26% of the total. 29% of them are independent artists, writers and performers. Finally, across the country, there are more than 3,000 businesses in the arts and culture sector owned by immigrants.
Find more on design process and my research on the project below:
%203.jpg)
Each book has a theme and 16 customized pages: Broken Silence, Broken Dreams and Broken Desires. The style is inspired by the sketchbook and journaling approach since the topic is very personal to me. The content contains visual communication, storytelling, graphically and photographically spoken words all written and edited by me.
The website is for the Zone organization to reach out to people and communities and provide an insight into the organization, the purpose and mission. In addition, it is a platform where people can interact by purchasing products, participating in programs and attending events.
This project was the beginning of my healing journey, which involved tears more than designs. It helped me grow as a designer and human. The style I used throughout my book publications was outside of my usual visual and creative style, which was the biggest learning curve for me to adapt to new design approaches and learn to be vulnerable with my words, all together in one project. It was a wish of mine to have an opportunity to speak with creativity and design about my truth and I am proud to say that this project brought out the best in me and beautified my words into pages.
One of the biggest lessons I learned throughout my process is the equation between vulnerability and design which results in greater changes and magic.