Fern | Emma Brickstock
Working to protect and promote British Columbia's vast biodiversity.
Fern is a non-profit organization that works with British Columbia based environmental non-profits who’s goals are to protect, promote and preserve the biodiversity of British Columbia. Fern creates the branding and marketing collateral that the non-profit organizations need in order to raise awareness, funding and the opportunity to continue to develop and grow.
The Big Picture
British Columbia has a diverse ecosystem and biodiversity, as it is home to more species than any other Canadian province. Unfortunately, many of the species in British Columbia are at risk of extinction. My goal was to create a platform to promote and bring awareness to local organizations that work to tackle environmental issues within British Columbia.
Bring awareness
Generate conversation and bring awareness to environmental issues within British Columbia.
Inspire donations
Inspire donations and funding towards environmental based organizations.
Encourage connection
Encourage a sense of connection to the natural world.
The Chosen Non-Profits and Their Branding
Below you can view the three British Columbia based non-profits that I chose to rebrand and create marketing collateral for. You can view the style sheets, the information about each non-profit and the products created.
Ancient Forest Alliance
The Ancient Forest Alliance is a registered non-profit organization working to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests and to ensure a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest industry.
Living Oceans
Living Oceans mission is to inspire the global community to become Ocean Wise by increasing its understanding, wonder and appreciation for our oceans. Achieving this by engaging in scientific, social and economic research to ensure campaigns are grounded in fact and their solutions are science-based.
Marmot Recovery Foundation
The Marmot Recovery Foundation works to bring the Vancouver Island Marmot back from the brink of extinction, and ensure it has a sustainable future. The Vancouver Island Marmot lives only in Canada, and is just one of five mammals to occur nowhere else in the world.
Fern's Website
Fern’s website is where you can access information about what it is Fern does and the objectives and goals they have. You can learn more about the non-profits they support as well as donate through their shop section.
Click on the images to see a more in-depth look through the website.
Hi, I'm Emma!
I am a Communication Designer based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. I am an adaptive creative thinker who focuses on communication design as a tool for creating modern design solutions. My work is often inspired by natural elements and my love for the outdoors.
Side Dish: Coffee | Triet Pham
Side Dish is a series of mini-monographs dedicated to the topic of food and how the history of everyday foodstuffs can reflect the flow of history. Each publication is dedicated to a specific dish or ingredient, whose historical path — its origin, how it came to be, the methods of cooking, etc. — is traced and visualized with typography and images.
This project was awarded the John C. Kerr Chancellor Emeritus Award for Excellence in Design
Volume 1 of Side Dish examines the French colonial influences on the Vietnamese cuisine, with the first issue focusing on the historical route through which coffee had established its current significance in the Vietnamese cuisine. From a drink with Islamic religious meanings to a highly sought-after commodity of colonial practice, coffee’s history reflects multiple political, social, and cultural shifts that have happened during the journey from its original birthplace in Ethiopia to its current cultural significance in Vietnam.
How Side Dish came to be
Food is a universally familiar yet complex and multi-layered medium that can reflect the socio-cultural changes happening around us. The introduction of new ingredients to a cuisine results in new flavours and new ways of cooking. The process of colonization has greatly altered many cuisines with the distribution of native ingredients from one geographical region to another. These social, cultural, political, and historical shifts have resulted in the subsequent changes to food practices from cultures that bore the influence of these shifts.
I am interested in examining the invisible and hidden truths behind the everyday food items. Prompted by the relationship between food practices and social, cultural, and historical shifts, this project examines the different external cultural influences on the social lives and food practices in Vietnam through history, starting out with the history of coffee. With food bearing both physical and emotional significance, Side Dish explores how we can document, learn about and reflect on history — whether of the world or of our own culture — through the transformation of food.
Vietnamese workers harvesting coffee berries on a plantation in Tonkin, 1931, photo from L’Indochine by Henri Gourdon.
—
Coffee plants were brought to Vietnam during the French colonization era.
Audience & Bilingual Publication
The publication, written and designed in both Vietnamese and English, targets Vietnamese and people of Vietnamese descent as the main audience. I want to ensure that the project is linguistically accessible to both Vietnamese and people of Vietnamese descent who may not be fluent in reading Vietnamese text. Side Dish is a reader-friendly, comprehensible, and accessible resource for the readers to learn more about the Vietnamese culture and history through the examination of Vietnamese food.
An inside page of Side Dish, with a botanical drawing of the coffee plant.
Content research
Swipe for more ↔
➊ Precedent research & initial readings.
➋ Photos of food with colonial history in Vietnam.
➌ Research in the General Sciences Library of HCMC.
➍ Research specifically on the history of coffee.
Final publication
The publication is to be printed on the Risograph printer with fluorescent orange ink, with the images and black text inkjet-printed in CMYK.
—
Size: 6.8 × 11 in.
Saddle-stitch binding with staples
Cover: yellow cover-weight newsprint
Inside: Canson 30lb newsprint
—
Typefaces:
Roslindale Deck, by DJR.
Garamond Premier Pro, by Robert Slimbach.
Halyard Micro, by Joshua Darden.
About Triet Pham
I am a communication designer from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, currently based in Vancouver, BC.
My work includes visual identity, print & publication design, creative direction, and type design. I’m interested in collaborative projects that use design as a means to examine cultural identity and address social issues.
✺ Website — trietpham.com
✺ Instagram — triet._.pham
✺ LinkedIn — Triet Pham
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my instructors — Katherine Gillieson, Jon Hannan, and Gabe Wong, for all the helpful support and advice during my concept development and design process. Thank you, Doan Truong, for helping me proofread and edit the Vietnamese translation of the text. A big shout out to all my studio friends for all the thoughtful feedback as well as the brainless banter! And most importantly, I’d like to thank my parents for giving me this opportunity for higher learning, and especially for going on fieldwork and taking all the documentary photos of Vietnamese food for me, while I am in Canada!
Pressed Ephemera | Christine Fwu
Pressed Ephemera
A Critical Look into “What Used to Be”
Pressed Ephemera examines the intention, meaning, and care behind printed precedents. It is a research and process based project that begins with an exploration of how history has affected the ideals and aesthetics of print design in each time period. The project then moves into the most meaningful and important aspect: the making & the experience. In order to capture the limitations of the past, I went on a journey of following old processes. Each period and its printing method has been meticulously researched, explored, and printed with different materials. The results are a series of intriguing and handmade ephemera.
View the presentation here.
View the process book here.
View the journal here.
The final project piece are two Pressed Ephemera metal stamps that I made for the foil stamping process! This logomark can be used on cards, and it would be used on the cover of my process book.
In this project page, I will take you through Ikigai Exercises that led me into my project, to creating Printed History pieces that take on the design styles of each period, and the Old Processes that show my process and experience of making. Then finally, the final Multimedia Posters and Process Pieces & Tags are displayed. The Postcards at the end are takeways for the project that give a sneak peak into the design styles and experiences of making from the multimedia posters.
I hope you will enjoy diving back to a time when creation was well thought out, cared for, and meaningful. Hopefully you will find appreciation and curiosity in being immersed in all of the printed ephemera, as much as I did.
Print, Handmade Processes, Research & Process,
Typography, Creative Direction, Critical Design,
Exhibition Design, Experience Design
Core Typeface
— Adobe Jenson Pro: Robert Slimbach, based on Nicolas Jenson (1470)
metal stamps: magnesium die + aluminum block
foil stamper · assorted metallic foils
Ikigai Exercises
Below are four project exercises aimed at exploring my thesis idea and diving right into making generatively. Ikigai is also known as “the meaning of life”; if one succeeds in each of these four sectors then one would lead a fulfilled, rewarding, and valuable life as a whole. These mini projects helped me to to reflect on the value and importance of my project through making. Through these explorations, I became certain that I wanted to do this project.
What You Love
I really love flowers and my thesis looks into design styles of the past. So I made a floral Tetley tea box redesigned in old style.
Paper packaging was popular in the past as they could be reused and recycled. Tin packaging was also used abundantly as they could be kept around the house to hold other objects. For future explorations, I could create a stencil and paint on a tin can or box.
What You’re Good At
I am good at planning, organizing, and making calendars. For this exercise, I made a daily challenge calendar of design’s past with prompts everyday to explore this topic.
Using the form of an advent calendar, which was first made in Germany in 1851, everyday is an open door to a new challenge that was helping me to direct my research.
What The World Needs
When thinking about what the world needs, I realized that much of the general public lacks appreciation and curiosity. To generate more of this, I decided to create a little exhibition that includes a typewriter, old books and objects, and an interactive section with metal type and foil stamp samples.
I made a Retro & Vintage Night poster, along with tickets to this little event. I also made a Little Book of Oldstyle Designs to showcase design styles through periods of time.
What Makes You Money
For what can me money, I was thinking about how dissemination to a wider audience can get people to start seeing the value in old objects and ephemera.
The website mockup I have created includes the history of each of the periods, designed in the style of that time. It would also have a shop section where people could purchase old style objects and ephemera.
Printed History
These Printed History (digital laser prints) showcase the design styles and history of each period. My project timeline begins with the Renaissance period (1400–1600), through to the Enlightenment period (1700), and ends off with the Decorative Arts period (1800). Through my research, I looked into the printed forms that existed each period, designed in that context, and included its history as text for these printed pieces of ephemera.
Old Processes
The Old Processes (handmade prints) display the printed history pieces that are remade by hand through Letterpress & Etching, Silkscreen, and Cyanotype. Through my experience of making, I learned to take time and to think critically about each design decision I was making. I became more careful and thoughtful in my work throughout all of these processes.
Letterpress & Etching · Process
Silkscreen · Process
Cyanotype · Process
Posters & Process Pieces + Tags
These multimedia posters invite you to interact and engage with each period and their handmade prints! The process pieces + tags will take you through numerous iterations, and they embrace the imperfections that are a result of these handmade processes.
Note: Many other print processes exist in each of these periods, but these are the ones I have chosen due to accessibility and my interest.
digital prints: colour laser prints
handmade prints: letterpress & etching, silkscreen, cyanotype
Multimedia Posters
Process Pieces & Tags · Letterpress & Etching
Process Pieces & Tags · Silkscreen
Process Pieces & Tags · Cyanotype
Postcard Takeaways
These postcards are the takeaways at my exhibition. The portrait ones with Design Style talk about type and how aesthetics were affected by history and ideals of the time. On the other hand, the landscape ones with Old Processes
talk about the making process with each of the printing methods.
