Hi, I’m Lauren,
a brand designer, researcher, and artist telling visual stories that make positive change in the world.
Design
I began my design practice in my early twenties, working as a design intern at A to Z media, a record manufacturing house in Soho, NYC. Fun fact, one of the first things I designed there was an album cover for the prolific 70’s pop/rock band Orleans.
Over the years I have found that every project takes a different approach. The look of our world influences how we feel and interact with it. The best start to a project is a conversation.
Today, I create brands for small-medium businesses that are doing something special in the world and working with businesses to make change is why I love what I do.
Visual Identity, Website Design
A peer-learning incubator that needed a brand and web space to showcase the work of artists from around the world. This project focuses on the power of community education.
Visual Identity, Website Design
A free, open access, digital literacy workbook, designed with a feminist & anti-oppressive approach, with step-by-step instructions for use in community-based or classroom education.
Visual Identity, Product Design, Content Design
African Bronze Honey is an award winning B Corporation, social enterprise that works with organic beekeeping projects throughout Africa. I worked with them at a high-growth time to identify their target audience and update their packaging and product line for the impact entrepreneurship food retail space.
Research
In 2018 I began a master’s degree at OCAD in a program that explores our Digital Futures. I quickly joined several research projects with the Super Ordinary Lab at OCAD University and Pulse Lab at McMaster University where I learned how powerful deep exploration and data could be in the context of answering a question, or future casting. We often have expectations for certain outcomes, however, in examining the context, horizons and literature a different solution usually shows itself.
I have worked on projects that are examining how collaboration, equity and intersectionality can radically impact our communities for sustainability and positive growth.
Futures Thinking, Qualitative Research, Workshop Design
A research project that took place in mid 2020 to capture how the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting entrepreneurs in Ontario. We focused on alternative community, values-based solutions in the face of a capitalist collapse for so many small business owners.
Research Creation, Virtual Reality, Storytelling
An exploration of how VR might enable a space for women to find a voice, or tell a story. A two-part work that includes both a research paper and a VR space. This piece explores how we can use virtual reality to share stories and build a better future for our collective spaces in the digital commons.
Creative Work
In my creative explorations, I am interested in playing with the current and the future horizons of technology and design. I have explored the limits and complexities of VR and physical tech. My missions is to create work that can side-step some of those barriers but still provide expressions of deep connection and meaning.
Digital Photography, Creative Retouching
I maintain a regular practice of shooting what I see. I use editing to reveal my eye, rather than the camera’s. Contrast and colour is so important to the expression of this world. The small mundane parts of life are actually quite beautiful if you stop to see them. I have been shooting since I was a teenager, and messing around in darkrooms for just as long. Today I primarily use digital tools, and see image making as a core skill in my storytelling language.
Digital Photography, Creative Retouching
This project was created years ago when I became fascinated by the buildings in New York; the scale, the light, and the construction. I didn’t have a high quality digital camera at the time, and certainly not one that was small enough to come with me on my bike. Armed with my cheap, little Nikon Coolpix I started shooting hundreds of images of each scene to later sew together a digital blanket of my city.
Creative Technology, Arduino, Robotics, Prototyping
Some small sketches that use interactions with physical technologies. They are sensory and wholly simplistic, focusing on how we might use technology to alter and rethink these small moments of life.
Painting, Drawing, Storytelling
I started drawing small vignettes from my life in my early 20’s, as a way to remember the strange situations I would fall into, and hilarious thoughts that always accompanied those moments. I find keeping your hand and your eye connected through a line and paper is a great way to flex your memory and creativity.
This is a small snapshot of how I think and work. If you want to know a little more
about me, I sure do love telling stories. I am always open for new projects so get in touch.