Meet first-year student, Sophia Spanos McGill (IDEA Grad 2025)! Her self-portrait for IDES 133 - Visual Studio taught by Jay Bassan is shown above.

Read Sophia’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

I’m not the biggest fan of self-portraits, so this assignment was a challenge for me. I tried to channel the part of me that doesn’t like to be perceived into the portrait: It’s messy and chaotic, I layered many images of myself on top of each other, so that it's hard to see the proper outlines of one or the other. For the mood board we had to do, I went for a mix of a bunch of aesthetics I like and wanted to emulate in the final portrait: neon lights, city night life, 60s flowy aesthetic and overlapping repetition. I had so much fun putting this together, I was set up in my dorm room with the lights off save for my desk lamp, camera set up on my chair, and remote control for the camera set up on my phone!  

“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 year at IDEA School of Design 

My experience so far at IDEA School of Design has been a rollercoaster! Not only am I learning so much from my instructors but meeting the many skilled artists of my class has been incredible. It has been such a treat and blessing to be surrounded by so many creative and passionate people, I'm learning almost just as much from them! Walking into the classroom feels magical, even at 8:30 am, because I know I’m going to discover so many new ideas and be so inspired by the end of the day.  

Featured Work

Impression: childhood home  

For Jeff Burgess’ illustration class in our first semester, our final assignment was to either paint an impressionistic landscape, expressionistic portrait or cubist still life. After the previous portrait we had to do, I had had my fill of painting a face and wanted to try something with more freedom. So, I painted a landscape of my grandparents’ house and pool, where me and my siblings spent a lot of our summers as kids. I had fun going in with looser, wild strokes when painting, trying to capture that feeling of a summer afternoon of endless fun.

Unrequited Love 

For Pascal’s illustration class in the second semester, we were given an adjective to pair with love, and sent off to create a piece on that word combo, inspired by one of the many illustrators we had seen in class! My word was unrequited love. I almost loved the process of the piece more than the final product! This is from the point of view of a soldier who loves his country, fighting for it, but discovers the love isn’t requited. We were allowed to go digital for this, but I still tried to emulate J.C. Leyendecker for my technique, going over my base layer with lots of other ones, painstakingly adding detail after detail.  

Comic book self-portrait 

I loved this project! Complete artistic freedom! We were tasked by Andrew in our life drawing class to do a self-portrait, it could either be a typical self-portrait or a comic book insert. I went the Comic route as a huge Marvel fan and drew myself as Scarlet Witch! I had so much fun planning, sketching, painting, and then inking this piece (despite it being a self-portrait!) 

Why did you choose IDEA School of Design over other schools? 

What made me choose IDEA over other schools is its range. I found no other program that offered such a well-developed and encompassing curriculum as IDEA. That, paired with the smaller class size, professors that are connected to the industry and high post-graduation employment rate made my choice an easy one. Despite this, I find myself consistently surprised and impressed with the quality of the program.  

Advice for those considering applying to IDEA School of Design 

Don’t fear the risk. It can be scary putting together a portfolio and showing others your art, but it's worth it! It’s especially those personal pieces that speak to your individuality and uniqueness that make you exceptional. Let your personality shine through your work, never feel like you must conform to some set idea of what your portfolio should be. IDEA School of Design will be looking for great artists and even greater people!  

“Breakthrough Moments” at IDEA School of Design 

Perhaps not so much of a breakthrough moment, but breakthrough development. Every aspect of my art has evolved and changed in the short months that I’ve been enrolled in the program. If I look at my art before IDEA School of Design and my art now, I see just how many breakthrough moments I’ve had! It's really reflected in the quality of my work, and I can’t wait for it to evolve even more in years to come. 

Summer plans?

For the summer I’m taking a course on photorealistic digital painting, creature design, and world-building at brainstormschool.com! Other than that, I’ll be exploring Vancouver and getting to know the city!

What’s your favourite music video? 

“Shelter” by Porter Robinson! It has some of the most stunning visuals I have seen from a small-scale animation project, and I really love the storyline it tells! Every time I watch this music video, I get an urge to learn animation because of how powerful it is visually.