'Shades'

I love Nelly Furtado, she is such an amazing Canadian singer/song writer. She has inspirational music and a good positive appeal in society that it so desperately needs. One of her albums inspired me to draw. She captures so much emotion it's hard not to be inspired.

'Yield to Dance'

The word of the week according to illustrationriday.com is 'yield'. This dancer is yielding to the music and her angelic vibes around her.

Keiraz Designz

Blossoming Art Block: Downtown Hamilton Interviews

What a lovely day it was to take a trip downtown and to connect with leading graphic designers Jeremy Freiburger and Steph Seagram from http://cobaltconnects.ca/contact which is the new connecting element for creative communities. Jeremy has graced us with his talents from NYC and original started out in theatre. Jeremy has also done work for the Nutcracker here in Canada and now works with Steph, former Fine Arts student. They gave us insight on how their industry works and how important it is to keep up with the digital game in computer software. Graphic design surely has gone digital. These days it's important to have a blog or some type of website along with social media, although Jeremy begs to differ. It's no wonder graphic designer Leif Peng also strongly suggests social media is important when working in graphic design and the Hamilton Spector surely agrees. In today's Hamilton Spector the business section had a strong business view that the internet is here to stay despite early 1990s opposing view. Being a big internet user myself I always believed the internet was here to stay as I had commented in my grade 7 speech, in 1997, that the future would one day lead to school being on the internet. Today in 2012 it has become wide spread to gain education on the internet, you can even get university degrees online. Even so it is always good to gain personal work experience it seems like anywhere you go just about anyone wants work experience with no gaps. Not only is work experience crucial, but it's important to stay in your field even if you can gain experience with volunteer work, then it's surely a route worth taking. Resume appeal is still crucial in today's society, sorry folks. Furthermore, what is Cobalt Connects? Well if you have a dream, a goal, an aspiration in the graphic design area and need assistance with obtaining that goal and finding the people to reach out to, Steph and Jeremy are here to help. Not only do they have sharp business appeal, but their office sure is dripping with creativity.

It is a great place filled with experience, business and most of all creativity. 

After my meeting with Cobalt Connects I went downtown and met up at Mixed Media. 

Mixed Media Store is such a great place to find very and I am very unique everything from books, to magazines to art tools and medium. If you need it, they got it and more. There was so much to find and look at you sure could break a big dent in your wallet scouting out Mixed Media. Mixed Media is located in the James North Neighbourhood where artistic businesses have started to bloom. When you first walk in there are many books and bags and pens and pencils. These books are original in thought and very unique and interesting as well as their magazine collections which line up in the store. Further in the store their is older skate boards without wheels which can be used to be decorated and hung on your wall and if you want ideas and inspirations on that, yes they have a book for that too. In the back there is fabric and paint brushes and just about any type of art medium you can find. The store is definitely worth the drive to go back to, even out of town. 

After leaving Mixed Media Store http://www.mixedmediahamilton.com/blog/ I made my way down the busy yet, calm and blossoming streets of Hamilton where I passed by many art inspired stores with specific hours. I also walked by an interesting fabric store and some cafes and came across a delightful art gallery. I was welcomed inside by the owner and his friendly dog. The owner was a former Fine Art student with a love and passion for traditional art. His exhibit displayed for interesting displays of pop and modern art type works. Being a former art history student myself I was very interested to hear how 1970s artist was taking photography and and using paint and photoshop to display wonderful pieces of art and exhibiting them across the world, for around $3000 a pop. Not to bother with him with too many questions as he was busy conducting business I left and ventured out to find my way downtown and find more interviews where I came across what I thought was a digital print shop but was actually a book shop because they were switching locations. Anyways, it was interesting to hear the owner's concern for the obvious transition of downtown Hamilton blossoming into an art block. "Where are other business's to go" and "what about if you want a book to read?". Not only did he sell books but also vinyls, simply starting from a paper route and collecting money and keep track of dues and collecting vinyls and trading and selling. A good book is good for the go train for commuting back and forth. Will Hamilton be the new Toronto? Why not grab a book and travel out to see what we can find on Hamilton's art block. 

Sorry You're Happy / Art Licensing & Surface Design

Sorry You're Happy / Art Licensing & Surface Design

'Jen and Kyle'

Had such a great time meeting the happy and creative couple from "Sorry You're Happy" Corp. It was really interesting to hear and learn about their individual graphic design stories and how they ended up collaborating together to come up with their company; which makes print design for fabrics. Jen and Kyle both have a great eye for design and talent. Within their collaborated collections Jen would be the brain behind the business with an eye for style, colour and composition. She loves working with patterns. Kyle was friendly and funny as he talked about his unique style which stemmed from collage type forms with the ability to draw anything and a talent to come up with unique characters that they have printed on fabrics now. http://sorryyourehappy.com/blog/

This is a sample of Jen and Kyle's work from their blog website I pasted above. Kyle would say "he rocks this pink". 

Contact:

Sorry You’re Happy

905 297 9454
hello@sorryyourehappy.com

Jen & Kyle

"Return"

According to Illustrationfriday.com the word of the week is 'return'. So let's return to music and who better to dance with than Shakira. Her dance moves are signature, her style original yet cool. Al Parker, a renowned graphic designer makes one heck of a design with flowers.

It's all about flower power and promoting a green earth and remembering it's beauty. I also came across this cd cover for Shakira and wonder if they too were a fan of Al Parker.

This cd cover really inspired me. The black and white is a signature style we can all appreciate since we mostly see colour and the flowers are just vibrating off the page, they are so full in colour. I love Shakira's pose her, it's very emotional and speaks to me, but I need to make it my own. I felt like it was too simple and needed something. So this is what I came up with.

I added a butterfly because I love them and butterflies go with nature's flower's and it's beauty. Butterflies seem to be popular, regardless I like butterflies. I put the butterfly around the title because I am remembered of an Al Parker picture I put up previously where he placed a flower behind the title to add beauty and attention to it. Then I felt like it was still missing something so I added songs notes and lyrics because they look cool. 

I added the song lyrics to the top so the illustration didn't have a lot of white space. It let's your eyes flow nicely through the illustration. I used gospel lyrics, because like J-lo I like to add God and thank him for supporting me through me work, I can't do it alone without him. Afterwards, I started adding colour and this is what I came up with. 

Return to music and let the rhythm soothe your soul. Enjoy. I'd like to thank Shakira and the illustrators of her cd for giving me inspiration and coming out with amazing and original music. Thank you. 

Now that my photo is complete I have submitted it to Illustrationfriday.com for entry to win, if I don't win, it sure was fun still. http://www.illustrationfriday.com/entrysubmit_p.php

Perfume Bottle Dieline and Design by Keiraz

'Emotional Labour'

When becoming a graphic designer you need to go through a lot of emotional labour. A lot of people may ask you 'what does a graphic designer do' or 'where would you work', 'what do you do with that'. Graphic designers do not do physical labour jobs, they do emotional labour. What is emotional labour? It is the act of connecting to other human beings and making a change even if it is not easy for you to do in that moment.
There is a lot of art work involved to convey a meaningful expression to communicate information. In my blog here I have been striving to convey my skills while I am still learning and working on other projects. The projects that I am working on I do a lot of emotional labour to try to gain attention to a wider audience towards my career as a graphic designer. I really want to connect with a wide variety of people so they can see my ideas. I do not have a set of step by step instructions that I follow.  I take my own initiative based on one word that I get from Illstrationfriday.com such as 'capable' and I put that into an artistic piece while overcoming the thought that people may laugh.
From here I would like to move forward into a graphic design career where people may need an ad layout or logo or design made and I can use my own ideas and keep making new ideas. I will express and talk about my designs in new and exciting ways every time so you do not get bored when you come to my blog. It is a risky job because I never know my outcome, but if I fail I would like to learn from that and move forward. I use the internet on a wide level. I have this blog, a gmail account, twitter account, flicker account, and carbon made portfolio which I will add to the end of this post. It takes hard work to keep with producing new designs. I have a lot of designs laid out and though out and I will be making more time in the near future to sit down and further produce these designs for your viewing pleasure. I like to keep my ideas fresh, positive and unique. A website I have been using a lot recently is http://planetphotoshop.com/ which shows amazing tutorials on photoshop. While I am on my twitter account I have recently been viewing different art blogs and websites that you can view via through my twitter account or google+ account. I like to view through different magazines online such as, teen, vogue, Guess, Chanel, Gucci. I also have a list of followers involved with environment causes and animal rights. I have many ideas to start a new magazine of my own involving chips and pins that can be read with your mobile device. The spread will involve fashion, trend, while still relating to the everyday world around us. So many magazines are focused on one genre without much else to read about. My magazine will involve many ideas including the government, animal rights, religious freedom, and the environment. It will be conveyed in fresh new designs, by me, Keira Stirling.


I have several websites in which you can review my artwork:
http://stirlingkeira.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/#!/KeiraStirling
http://keiraz.carbonmade.com/

• Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stirlingkeira/
• Profile: http://www.flickr.com/people/stirlingkeira/

*These designs are not to be SOLD in any shape or form ON ANY PRODUCTS for any reason unless you have my signed written permission.

Please feel free to contact me here at stirlingkeira@gmail.com for my resume!