ABOUT ME &
CONTACT DETAILS
Name: Sonja Vahasaari
Skillsets: Graphic, Fashion and Web Design, Creative Directing, Modeling, Branding, Video, Photo & all things creative. Link to my creative portfolio below :)
Email: sonjavahasaari@gmail.com
Social Media:
website www.sonjavahasaari.com
modeling instagram.com/sonjq/
creative instagram.com/sonjavahasaari/
WORK PLACEMENT
I did 160 hours of work placement during this and last trimester. I worked for Afends (clothing brand), Bluesfest (festival) and Postcard (cafe). I am so incredibly grateful that I got to do my placement in these three places. My Bluesfest and Postcard work were on my last exhibition, so this exhibition I'll show you some of my work I did at Afends.
Afends
I worked mainly as a Graphic Designer at Afends, but I also got to do styling in a photoshoot, filming and editing videos, assist taking photos and learning the sampling process.
Design jobs I did:
Animation in After Effects
GIFS in Photoshop
EDMS (Email News letters)
Photo editing
Graphics for ads
Website/Social media banners and art work
I learned so much during this placement. The crew at Afends felt like my little family. I worked there for two months, one day a week, as I couldn't do more being a full time uni student. The crew was super helpful, they were patient teaching me and willing to teach me all kinds of things. I loved every second of it, which is why I completed more hours there than I needed, I thought it was so good for my creative progress and growth.
DESIGN STUDIO 3 PROJECTS
Lino Cut Print
This project was to design a pattern by using a linocut method, and learn about the transformation of a physical print into digital art, and then back to a physical art (like printing it out as a poster).
When I created the color combinations, I considered the viewer and what my final artwork would look like to someone who sees it for the first time. I want them to think that it is interesting and the color combinations are a bit odd, but they work and it is aesthetically pleasing to look at. I think this would definitely capture the attention when hanged on a wall. I didn't pick a specific color scheme, but I did research about Swiss Style and punk art era and kinda got inspired by that. I feel like all color variations work well together too. I had these 3 art works next to each other in Illustrator and wanted to make them cohesive by using some of the colors in all of them. I played around with the final artwork and added some Helvetica Bold (my favorite typeface with Helvetica Light) just to see what kind of different variations I could make.
Sliced Text
This project was to create a poster design and practise slicing text with Illustrator, and placing it on a poster in a way that makes it look interesting.
Creating this sliced type was fun. I wanted to make it look broken, kinda like a broken mirror. I started by choosing the font for this. I went with a more simple looking typeface. I wanted to choose something a little bit fatter than my usual go to Helvetica black, and I thought this was perfect for this project. I chose a light pink color for the type, as I feel it creates nice contrast between the black and white photo. I wanted to add some color to make the poster pop. Then I used Helvetica Black on the rest of the typefaces on the poster as it is a neat typeface and it complements the broken title typeface nicely and creates contrast to the poster. I love following the design principles when I design, but I also really love to break them. I created the file in CYMK instead of RGB so it can be either an online ad or printed out.
Package Rebranding
This project was to pick a package that I want to rebrand. I instantly knew which product I wanted to rebrand. I wanted to pick Vitasoy, as they have good soy milk but their packaging is not so aesthetically pleasing. And the whole range of milks is not cohesive. I wanted to design a packaging that is visually appealing and as it will assist with marketing and selling the brand to the target audience.
As a graphic designer, I thought about the connection of form, structure, materials, color, imagery, typography and the required packaging. I know that as a designer, I need to work with clients to develop effective packaging designs. From a consumer's point of view a product needs to be appealing and attractive on a shelf (“shelf impact”) and this makes a huge difference in product sales. It is my job as a designer to make the product stand out from the crowd.
Effective packaging design is designing for the target market, like for example when designing for children, the product needs to have bright colors and a sense of fun to engage the audience. My target audience for this project was pretty broad. It's soy milk, so anyone can drink it. I wanted to make the packaging appealing to all kinds of people. That's why I worked on it for SO long and I did many different package versions to end up with the final result.
Newspaper Ad
This project was to design a newspaper advertisement, and learn about the transformation of a print ad into an online advertisement for the same newspaper. I used InDesign for the print ad, and then both photoshop and InDesign for my animated gifs. When I designed these ads, I considered the quality aspects of newspaper print, so I avoided using small reversed out text, larger areas of dark color, white small type and cramped information. For online ads I considered the effect of animation on my viewer and the readability of my ad. I also thought about how I would capture attention without creating too much noise on my designs by using design principles like contrast, white space and proportion. When I was designing my ads, I was thinking how crowded newspapers are with content, so I would draw the reader’s eye to my ads.
During this project I learned SO much. I learned how to identify and implement pre-press and post-press printing technologies in Indesign, Photoshop and adding elements from Illustrator. I have noticed in my work life, that any design job I get, I get a marketing/project asset folder, which I also did when I got this project. I have also noticed how important it is to name the files and folders right, so I made sure everything was named properly before I zipped my file for submission.
Design Identity Project
This project was to reflect myself as a designer and build a branding and portfolio for myself. I absolutely loved this project. I have been updating my portfolio over this year and I did a massive update on it two weeks ago. But it wasn't the entire project, I still had some stuff to do for it, and I was further reflecting on myself as a designer and updated my portfolio even further from what I learned during this project.
"Design is the considered approach to aesthetics with a view to best communicate a message" (Z.Rynzhuk, July 22, 2021, Design Balance)
Design in everything. And to be a good designer, it is super important for me to know who I am and what I have to offer.
It was nice to start the project by reflecting on my transferable skills and think which areas I am good at and what areas need improving. My two best transferable skills are adaptability and communication. I can design to clients branding, understand their vision and goals and go from there and offer beyond. I always think about what I can do and how that can be further used for future projects. I think about their company, their social media marketing, their ads, their work space and literally everything that my designs can help them. I brainstorm for their future. It's great. And this is where good communication skills come handy. I explain my ideas in a fun, creative way and explain to them why hiring me will be a good asset for their business. I can work with anyone and everywhere. And if there is something I feel like I need more time with, I communicate it in a professional way.
POS Material/Shelf Wobbler Project
This project was to design a Point of Sale Material, in this project a shelf wobbler, for my package rebranding project. Point of Sale material is anything you might find in a shop that draws attention to a product. When I started this project I asked myself: What shape of design I am going to create? What will have the best impact on a shelf? What words am I going to include? Why am I using these words? What do I want to communicate? Will I use a slogan? What will I want to say that will make the customer purchase the product from the shelf?
Wobblers have around 1-1.5 seconds to impress the shopper in the shop. They don't have many words,the text has to be a "digestible chunk". So I decided to go with a round wobbler, with my package redesign in it. I made the cactus character bigger so it would add more personality to the wobbler. Then I included a slogan "Soy milk from heavens!" and a vitasoy social media tag to promote their social media precense.
ASRA Journal
This project was to style an article for ASRA Journal. I got given an article "Living Instruments" and "Scrun Choir", which both were long articles to style, but I didn't mind it at all. I got given a styleguide to follow and I had to practice removing formatting from a word document, following a style guide and do the design of the styling based on examples of the layout given.
When I was styling the layout, I considered the design principles like negative and positive space by playing around with position of the images in the article. I wasn't allowed to use text wrapping, so I just placed them amongst the columns, but one image I made a bit bigger so it hangs outside the column. I noticed that they do this alot in the ASRA examples, so I followed. Everything is aligned with the grid that was already made in the template. The template also had all the paragraph styles ready and the alignment of the text. I noticed when I took the hyphenations off that some of the text got squished, so I put some words on the next line with cmnd + space, so it opened up the text a little. It looks nice, and its very aligned with the styleguide. I am happy :)
When I edited the photos B&W, I also kept ASRAs styling in my mind. I observed the way they have edited their pictures BW. I noticed that some were more contrasty and dark than others, so I did the same. I had few screenshot looking photos in mine, so them I just made B&W and fixed some highlights and shadows, and the bell photo was more artistic so I felt comforatable to make it more dark. I love the look of them. I edited them in Lightroom, exported in full res and then opened them up in PSD to make sure theyre 300ppi. I did this in photoshop and then exported them. I love the end results!
Print Layout News Letter
This project was to design a newsletter layout by using a pile of photos and text that was given to me. I used InDesign to build the layout and then Lightroom to edit the photos. When I designed these pages, I considered the quality aspects of a newsletter, so I avoided using text that is too small, I also didn't use white as type if it was on top of a BW image (I used cream) in case someone wanted to print a page out, and I also avoided cramped information so these things wouldn't affect the readability of my news letter.
When I designed the layout, I had few rules on mind that I wanted to follow. It had to look interesting (capture the readers eye), have enough white space and to be informative. I did a massive moodboard with news letter layouts and little indesign hacks at the start of the project. My design style is very minimal, a lot of white space and using photos or other design elements slightly more than text.
Designing is problem solving, and that's what I was doing alot when I was creating this project. I played around with so many shapes, ways of placing type, following grids, breaking the grids, contrast between light and bold, contrast between BW and colour, placement, size and much more.
DESIGN PROCESS
I take a lot of screenshots of every project I do for my personal learning progress. If I would upload all of them here this page would become too long so I just thought I would upload some to show you what my design process looks like.
Normally I start my process by doing a moodboard and a mind map of the project. Then I brake down the deliverables into individual sub headings into my learning journal and build from there, until they are all covered and I normally add in extra things I've learned or write how I have implemented them into my current work.
Some screenshots below:
COLLABORATIVE WORK
This trimester we only had one collaborative work, which was the ASRA Journal Project I mentioned above. We had a meeting with the editor via Zoom on class and he told us the design standards, answered all our questions and gave us the assets and the style guide to follow. Outside uni I have done a lot of collaborative work, mainly through social media.
Some businesses I have worked with recently:
Misfit Womens
Wrangler Australia
Afends
Zulu&Zephyr
Cocobella
Marimekko
Surfdive n Ski
REFLECTION
This trimester was one of a kind. I grew so much as a designer and I gained a tonne of confidence in my work.
I have grown so much as a creative this year. One morning during this trimester, I decided to do a massive change into my businesses. I have had 2 businesses this year and I think all this uni reflecting on myself and on my transferable skills has shaped my ideas where I want to go as a designer. I want to do ME, and during this trimester I announced on my other business page that I will combine these two under my personal brand Sonja Vahasaari. It feels good, and it feels like its the right thing to do. Also all the work placement I have done through uni (Bluesfest, Postcard and Afends), I have realised what kind of business I want. I want to freelance. I want to express myself. I want people to hire me because I am ME. I have realised what kind of working environment suits me the best, and that is preferably from home, with a cup of coffee, surf lunch breaks and working late at night. It really works for me and this is when I feel the most creative. Surfing for me is a form of art, a form of expressing myself, a place of meditation, and if I work 9-5 hours in an office I will not get that, and I start losing myself.
I have reflected how much I appreciate SAE. For me the projects or uni doesnt feel like something I need to just push through and get over and done with. I learn, and I am so keen to learn. I want to do the projects in my own style. I am so so so grateful that I am doing this. I feel like all the seeds I have been planting this year are growing now, and everything is coming together in my life and the idea I have of myself as a creative is becoming more clear.
During this trimester I have updated my portfolio with my latest work and also I went through my skills list that I want to promote. I realised that I don't want to promote all my skills as some are things that I am not so passionate about doing. I think learning how to seperate skills from work that I want to do and promote is important. I also emphasised some skills there, like creative directing, as this is something I REALLY want to do. I have had it on my skills list but there was no work to show that I have planned, styled and directed shoots. I do this constantly and I absolutely love it. So I am glad for this trimester, it made me further reflect on myself!
During this trimester I also reflected on my transferable skills in my personal creative work and collaborative creative productions. I do this alot on my own time, but I also had to fill in a form to reflect on my transferrable skills in the beginning of some projects. This is such a good practise to reflect where I am good at and what needs improving. Design in everything. And to be a good designer, it is super important for me to know who I am and what I have to offer.
It was nice to reflect on my transferable skills and think which areas I am good at and what areas needs improving. My two best transfrable skills are by adaptability and communication. I can design to a clients branding, understand their vision and goals and go from there and offer beyond. I always think what I can do and how that can be further used for future projects. I think about their company, their social media marketing, their ads, their work space and literally everything that my designs and other creative things I can offer to help them. I brainstorm for their future. Its great. And this is where good communication skills come handy. I explain my ideas in a fun, creative way and explain them why hiring me will be a good asset for their business. I can work with anyone and everywhere. And if there is something I feel like I need more time with, I always communicate it in a professional way. One thing that needs some attention and improving is my way of starting projects sooner than close to deadlines. This happens mainly because of my ADHD. I have spent this whole year trying to work WITH my ADHD, not against it and learning so much from it has taught me so much. It has taught me how to work better in uni, work better in a work environment and as a person. I have learned about my ADHD and how it affects to the way I work, and I have learned what work environment I thrive in and how I work the best. I am very adaptable to circumstance though, and I can do any job anywhere if required, but I normally am open about my ADHD, so that people understand me better. It is great, I am not using it as an excuse for anything, but it just explains the way I function :)
My time management during this trimester can be looked wither seen as being good or terrible. I work 8000 projects at the same time as I do my full time studies so I think my time management is pretty good. I also moved houses two times during this tri. I tend to be late on classes, which is something I have been trying to work on ever since day 1, but as my life is so hectic, sometimes I just need to take things slow in the morning. And I know its a bad habit but I work the best at night, and I need a decent sleep for my brain to function.
Feedback and collaborating. These are my transferable skills I feel like I am good at, collaborating and communicating. I am open for ideas and I love brainstorming ideas, for myself and for others. In our weekly feedback sessions I was always present, I did not work on my own things and I only listened what others had to say and show, and I gave my feedback. I love our feedback sessions, I get so much out of them. So much inspiration. Because I enjoy giving feedback and recieving feedback, I have learned not to have any personal attachment to my work. If someone thinks I should change something, and especially if another person thinks the same way too, I most likely will change it. I always take all feedback on board, good and bad. Why feedback is so important to me, it's because I love learning and I love evolving as a designer. In regards of collaborating, this trimester I have paid extra attention to clean files, file names and packaging my work correctly. I always name my work properly and spend time on doing that, so if someone will continue my work process, they know where they can find everything. I create and name all my files as if I was in work environment. So if someone will continue my work process, they know where they can find everything. I have been handed so many messy work AI, IDD, PSD, AE files and I always hate it if I have to spend alot of time figuring where everything is at. I always think about team work and collaborating when I am working.
I also take in feedback from our guest lecturers, like when I created my package design. We had a guest lecturer Rob, who gave me really good thoughts to think about like what kinda design will reach a broader target audience, what size my logo should be and he questioned some of my design choises and I directly implemented this feedback into my design. My people skills are also good, which is why I think I can show my work with confidence and in a way, that makes a client realise the value of my creative work.
During this trimester I also learned lots of hard skills. I paid extra attention to design principles and reflecting on them after every project. I paid attention to negative space and positive space, contrast, position, quality of an image (300ppi for printing), colour schemes and much more. I learned how to design multiple dielines, make a lino cut into digital form, designing and styling a print layout, coming up with styling and following a style guide, online ads (GIFS and different sizes), using sliced text in a effective way in a poster design and creating templates for invoices, quoting and building an effective CV with recommended key words.
I learned that effective design is designing for the target market, and knowing my target audience before designing is super important. I learned to think about the connection of my design, planning, materials, colour, imagery, typography and the required assets. I learned that I need to work with my clients to develop effective designs by understanding their branding and needs. From a client's point of view, a design needs to be appealing and attractive to their customers. It is my job as a designer to make the design stand out from the crowd.
I learned SO much during this trimester and I evolved insanely much. This trimester has been the best one so far. Even though it was a bit of a gravel road, it shaped me to this point I am now, and I couldn't be happier. Thank you.