First year IDEA student, Freya Emery (IDEA Grad 2024) has become a stronger version of herself and wants you to be fearless with your art
Meet first-year student, Freya Emery (IDEA Grad 2024)! Her self-portrait for IDES 133 - Visual Studio taught by Jay Bassan is shown above.
“My experience with the IDEA School of Design has been truly amazing. I became a stronger version of myself, and it’s only been what…. six months now *mindblown* 🤯
Explore all mediums and be fearless with your art.”
Read Freya’s story and check out some of her other work for a glimpse into first-year student life at IDEA School of Design at Capilano University.
Self Portrait by Freya Emery (IDEA Grad 2024)
First off, I just want to state that Jay was a fantastic teacher, and I’m very honoured to have taken one of his classes. Photography has been a focus and a passion of mine for many years now. Throughout high school, I taught myself photography, took a handful of workshops, and built my own website to showcase my photography. With Jay’s help, I strengthened my skills and was allowed to experiment and have fun.
Self Portraits have been one of my favourite mediums for a long time, so when Jay’s Self-Portrait project came along, I was more than excited. Part of the project was to build a mood board that reflects your personal brand. I find myself more of a comedic person, yet if I describe my personal aesthetic, I would say it’s the exact opposite; dark, nature-based, borderline witchy. So I decided to focus more on my personal aesthetic rather than the bubbly side of me.
I also am borderline obsessed with designing mood boards. For every one of my assignments in the past term, I have developed a mood board before executing the project. So to create a mood board for Jay’s self-portrait assignment was inspiring and exciting for me.
“Freya’s self-portrait and mood board are perfect companions in this project. Each one building on the narrative of her brand. It was exciting to see the outcome of fantasy elements and nature coming together with her unique style.”
Self-portrait mood board by Freya Emery (IDEA Grad 2024)
“The Assignment” by Jay Bassan, Instructor
Create a mood board visualizing your Passion, Super Power, Values, Purpose and differentiation (students can use any medium for this).
“The Goal” by Jay Bassan, Instructor
To have students think clearly about how to imagine themselves as a brand and use their final self-portrait as an expression of that. This becomes one of the more interesting projects since it happens near the end of class and students are now comfortable enough with the camera.
I remind students that similar to sketching, where you decide where to put the pencil, pen, or mouse to compose your drawing, where do you put the camera to capture a moment or tell a story?
I get some interesting work.
Experience so far in first term at IDEA School of Design
My experience with the IDEA School of Design has been truly amazing. I knew going into the program I would build many connections and learn a lot of valuable information. But I also became a stronger version of myself, and it’s only been what…. six months now *mindblown* 🤯
Featured Work
Black and White Line Drawing
This Illustration was my first assignment of the second term in Pascal Milelli’s class, and I was more than excited. We were asked to illustrate a finished line drawing only using black ink on white paper. We had to include at least one element from nature, one figure visible from head to toe, and a second figure that’s partially hidden. With this assignment, we were also tasked to build a springboard using four to six photos to take inspiration from.
1960’s Cultural Album Cover
For one of our more recent assignments in Vida Jurcic’s class, we were assigned to design a 1960’s cultural album cover for a band of our choosing, and my mind almost immediately went to Paramore. For most of my high school years, I was obsessed with Paramore, and more recently, I’ve gotten back into them. I found this to be an enjoyable assignment, and I look forward to designing more album covers.
Typographic Expressionism Book Cover
For this assignment in Vida Jurcic’s class, we were assigned to design a typographic expressionism book cover for the book of our choice. I decided to re-design the cover of my favourite book, The Girls by Emma Cline, which is loosely inspired by the Manson Family and the murder of the actress Sharon Tate. I decided to incorporate the figure of a woman within the cover using a tie-dye-inspired print and wrapping the text within the shape of a heart which is frequently brought up in the book.
Why did you choose IDEA School of Design over other schools?
I had the incredible privilege of being part of a program for three years while in High School. The Mount Sentinel Performance and Media Academy introduced me to Digital Art, Illustration, and Graphic Design, setting a solid foundation to what I would later discover was my true passion and what I wanted to study post secondarily. During my second year of the Academy, I was introduced to the IDEA Bachelor of Design and instantly fell in love. Both the Academy and the IDEA Bachelor of Design programs put team building and making connections as top priorities within a class of thirty students. I thrive in a space where I have opportunities to either work collaboratively with fellow like-minded students or independently on projects that I am passionate about. The IDEA Bachelor of Design fulfills this in all ways. Additionally, I am very eager to learn more about Illustration, Photography, and Design, so when choosing a post-secondary institution, the IDEA Bachelor of Design was an obvious and primary choice for me.
“The Bachelor of Design program at IDEA School of Design is a 4-year degree program with an enduring reputation for industry-prepared graduates. We are a career-oriented program for the next generation of creative professionals, with concentrations in branding, illustration and interactive design.”
What advice would you give to those considering applying?
I would suggest exploring all mediums and be fearless with your art. While I created pieces for my portfolio, I found that I held back a lot and wasn’t experimenting. Allowing yourself to experiment will bring out the talents you have that you may not have discovered just yet.
Reach out to IDEA faculty or past/present students to get their perspective and listen to their story on how they found the IDEA program. The IDEA community is a very close-knit, like-minded group of students and faculty looking out for each other. If you have questions, reach out.
“The purpose of your portfolio is to demonstrate your creative potential. We assess portfolios on drawing skill, design and creativity.”
"Breakthrough moment" at IDEA School of Design
Yes and no. Every day feels like a breakthrough moment. I have learned so much in this past month it’s hard to look back and pick out an exact moment when my mind wasn’t blown. But I will say that every time I’ve had my work critiqued by my instructors and peers, I’ve walked away with a sort of Ah-Ha moment where I can then see what I need to fix in order for it to work better and also have more knowledge on what to change during my next assignment.
What’s one of your favourite songs or music videos?
You would think that my favourite music video would be by Paramore (which one of them is), but currently, my favourite music video is The Pretender by Foo Fighters.
For more on Freya follow her on Instagram @freya.emery.
