Author: Adrianna LeBlanc
Amy Brigant, soon to be a third year Graphic Design student at George Brown College, joined the IN Store in 2017. Many of her beautiful designs are gracing our shelves this fall. You’ll see her name attached to a variety of IN Store cards, totes and trivets including “Wacky Cat”, “Anchors Away”, “Handful of Daisies”, “Juicy Fruits”, “Geo Beetle”, and “Dog Party”.
"Geo Beetle" Design by Amy Brigant
Life Before GBC
Before joining the world of Graphic Design, Amy worked for a few of Toronto’s leading fashion companies including Lida Baday and Kleinfeld. Amy was attaching straps and fixing the edging of Kate Spade purses when she realised the fashion world wasn’t working for her anymore.
Amy’s friends were gushing one hot summer night about how much they loved their graphic design careers and Amy thought “maybe I should do that”. It made sense because many of Amy’s skills from the fashion world were easily transferable to Design. Amy rushed to submit her application into the George Brown College Graphic Design program and she started classes that fall.
Photo of Amy Brigant by Adrianna LeBlanc
Life @ IN
Amy enjoys working for IN because she says “There’s a lot of creative freedom. Jen and Lori let me draw a lot, which is great because it’s not something I’ve ever been paid to do. Everybody here is super chill and that’s awesome, because it’s hard to find workplaces where everyone is copesthetic. There’s a lot of [male] dominated workplaces and I love that I have female bosses and coworkers who are strong”.
Dog Party
Amy doesn’t conform to any one style when it comes to her designs. She takes her inspiration from everything around her and has always been (in her words) flexible and open to trying new things. I asked about her inspiration for the dog designs and she smiled and said “Don’t even get me started on the dogs.”
Dog Party Design by Amy Brigant
The dog illustrations started with a couple of small dogs and ended up with 18 illustrations (which is why we now have “Dog Party” totes). Amy says she “really fought for the weiner dog.“ She felt that “it needed it’s chance to shine and be the center of attention.”
Design Process
Amy’s design process for the IN Store products typically follow these steps:
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Big Idea or Research(aggressive pinteresting)
She says the “Geo Beetle” design just came to her so there was less research involved in this design.
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Hand Drawing/Digital Painting
“Juicy Fruits” started as a blob in Photoshop. She took inspiration from contemporary design shapes and lines and used it to create a design that is fun and appealing.
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Tracing in Illustrator
Amy likes all of her designs to be vector based so she can save the file small and size up.
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Design Clean Up
The light box helps minimize the amount of time needed for this step, according to Amy.
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Test Print/Mockups
This step can change the design entirely, because everything looks different from screen to print.
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Revision/Narrowing Down Products
Lori & Jen review the top designs before sending them off for final approval. Some designs don’t make it past this stage.
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New Mockups
At this step, Amy likes to see how far they can push the design. If she finds last minute inspiration, she might change the design to create something new.
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Production Prep
To prep for production, Amy makes final revisions and sets up her files in the proper formatting.
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Placing Product on the Shelf
The best part! At this stage, Jen designs our shelf set up to be visually pleasing (because at IN, we love our store to exude beauty in design).
What’s Next?
Amy is currently bringing her fashion skills back into play by working on handmade artisanal pencil/sunglass cases for the IN Store. We can’t wait to show them to you, but you’ll have to wait!We want to hear your thoughts, tell us what your favorite Amy Brigant original design is in the comments below.
