Featured Work: Fertilizer Management Program
From prairie to peak to coast, Canada is a beautiful country. It has been my pleasure to work on a project that celebrates the topographical diversity of its western landscape through a series of vintage travel-style postcards of locations in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. This project, in promotion of Canpotex’s Fertilizer Management Program, also highlights the strength of the Canadian mining industry and its commitments to reliability, efficiency and safety.
The Canpotex Fertilizer Management Program provides international customers with an immersive, hands-on experience of the entire potash supply chain in Canada from mine to port. Participants visit the Canpotex head office located at River Landing, Saskatoon; Canpotex railcar maintenance facility in Lanigan (SK); shareholder mines across Saskatchewan including Nutrien Cory Mine in Saskatoon and Mosaic Belle Plaine Mine in Regina (SK); as well as supply-chain operations in Calgary (AB), and Neptune Terminals in the Port of Vancouver (BC). In addition to souvenir postcards featuring the locations of their stops, a visitor passport was developed that provided additional information and context about their operations.
I am proud to call this land home.
Media: Print, Social
Software used: Procreate, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign
Launch: Summer 2025
Goodbye Summer
Featured work: Canpotex 2025 Stakeholder Report
The Canpotex Stakeholder Report, Delivering Canadian Excellence to the World, shares the Canadian potash exporter's journey in 2024, which was marked by significant milestones and an unwavering commitment to their vision of being the vital link in global food security. I did art direction and design for the piece emphasizing engagement through visual storytelling. Immersive photography featured their head office in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, alongside the global markets they reach; while infographics distilled complex information into user-friendly data.
The document was distributed digitally and through print.
To read in full, visit this link.
Media: Digital, Print
Software used: Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat
Launch: Summer 2025
Your Occasional Ham
Book Recommendations:
The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry in Paris and New York
Written by Chandler Burr
As a collector, this book intrigued me to learn about the process, business and drama (!) in the world of perfume. Over the course of a year, the author followed the life of two scents: one a high-end, exclusive perfume for Hermés that was inspired by the Nile River and contained the notes of a mango only found in its valley; the other being a consumer-friendly wide release by Sarah Jessica Parker who was well invested in her fragrance’s production from start to finish. This book was quite fascinating and contained a lot of history and insider knowledge that has only enhanced my love of a good scent and the science behind it. The author could be incredibly snide at times, especially towards aquatics (my personal preference), but it made for an entertaining read.
Favourite line: “Coty–and Kenneth Cole, per his licensing contract with the company–makes millions off the Cole signature, mostly in the Midwest where the Cole scents are wildly popular with middle and lower-class straight guys who think they are buying the olfactory equivalent of a pair of Kenneth Cole shoes but wind up smelling like fluorocarbons. I smell Kenneth Cole and think of the hole in the ozone layer. A Coty executive once said to me “You can’t argue with money.” Yes and no: Kenneth Cole scents smell like air conditioning vents.”
In 2023, I immersed myself in the media of my childhood listening to nothing but eighties tunes and rediscovering some of the iconic films of the decade. I’ve now segued to recapturing my teenage years and waxing nostalgic on the last decade before the internet (and later social media) took over our lives. It may not have been perfect at the time … but it was. The next series of books all brought me back to the nineties and the culture that provided backdrop to my formative years.
Last Night at the Viper Room
Written by Gavin Edwards
River Phoenix is often touted as the original Leonardo DiCaprio: an amazing actor who also happened to be a Teen Beat heartthrob to young women but was ultimately revered (and remembered) for talent and humanity beyond his years. Last Night at the Viper Room explores his trajectory from being raised in a cult to starting out in Hollywood, playing roles in iconic films such as Stand By Me and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The book also examines the history of the infamous Sunset Boulevard nightspot The Viper Room and the characters that frequented it during an era when hard drugs were becoming harder. River’s legacy, unfortunately, will forever be tied to this location as the place of his death on Halloween, 1993. A sad narrative of what could have been.
Say Everything
Written by Ione Skye
Actress Ione Skye was never the top billed star but she was definitely part of the popular crowd throughout her career and has a lot interesting stories and observations to share. Her father was 60s folk singer Donovan. He never claimed her and she spent a lifetime learning how his absence and treatment of her mother was being repeated in her own life in relationships with people as varied as a Beastie Boy to an arrogant man of generational wealth to fully adult Anthony Kiedis (and also Flea) whom she had a toxic relationship with while underaged. This autobiography is perhaps the most self-reflective I’ve read from a celebrity. Her memories, praise and regret for marital discretions towards ex-husband Adam Horowitz being especially poignant.
Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival
Written by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour
Lollapalooza defined the nineties in the same way that Woodstock defined the sixties. A festival curated with the hottest acts of the era bringing youth together through music, politics and people who can lift dumbbells with their penis (i.e. the Jim Rose Circus). This book is of my new favourite genre, an unfiltered oral history on everything that happened by the people who were there. From the festival’s humble beginnings to how it became a business conglomerate used to market alternative culture, this book is an excellent collection of sometimes bitter, sometimes hilarious tidbits about the personalities that played the Lolla stage. Reading about Courtney Love’s antics were a particular highlight as the shy, introverted teenage version of me was in awe of her and the strong, uncompromising woman I wished to become.
Featured Work: origins of a brand name brought to life
For over 50 years, Canpotex has reliably delivered high-quality Canadian potash to overseas partners becoming one of the country’s largest exporters while contributing to global food security. An animated logo was requested to visually illustrate the origins of their corporate name (Canadian Potash Exporters).
Several variations were developed and the project expanded into repurposing the material into short videos that could be shared on social media and in corporate presentations.
Media: Digital, Social
Software used: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Express
Launch: Spring 2025
Book Recommendations
The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Written by Rick Rubin
It is difficult to always be “on” and to have the expectation from others that you will always craft magic while employed in an artistic field (making it easy for imposter syndrome to sink in). Because of this, I read a lot of books about creativity always with the hope that they will spark renewed inspiration. This one, by renowned music producer Rick Rubin, is easily one of the best I’ve read on the subject. It’s an easy read that I felt nudged me to look at the world with a new lens, to be present and engaged with everything around me in deeper and more meaningful ways. Some reviews negate the content by stating it is simply a book of pseudo-philosophical quotes but it was much more than that for me. I went in with no prejudice and feel I got the wisdom I was seeking.
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
Written by Olivia Liang
I have often experienced pangs of loneliness in my life, even when surrounded by friends or other loved ones. Perhaps it is the baseline feeling of those born as only children who longed for connection in their formative years but learned to live without. I picked up this book to find solace with that but it wasn’t entirely what I expected; the book is certainly about loneliness but it is framed around famous artists and marginalized figures and the work they subsequently created as a result of their lack of belonging (real or perceived). The premise of art providing healing for tortured souls is a tale as old as time. Some chapters in this one were more engaging than others.
Toxic: Women, Fame and the Tabloid 2000s
Written by Sarah Ditum
I came into adulthood during the time of Britney, Lindsay, et all. An era, not too long ago, in which the commodification of women seemed to heighten and become normalized by way of online tabloid culture and media like Girls Next Door and Maxim Magazine. In my twenties, I wasn’t immune to this societal influence (and pressure) and, sadly, felt my worth was tethered to whatever men thought of me. Thank god I’m now an old hag confident in my own skin. This book covers the stories and public crucifixions of those mentioned and many more, some of whom did not have a happy ending.
Billionaire Wilderness
Written by Justin Farrell
My home away from home is a 15-minute drive from the Montana border. I have grown to absolutely love traveling through the region, admiring how pristine and vast the wilderness is and how sparse the population feels. It truly still feels like the Wild West to me. But it isn’t all rural farmers. Some of the richest individuals in America have been buying up property in Big Sky Country to make it their mansion away from mansion. This book explores that phenomena. The concept has the potential to be engaging and informative on issues this wealth gap creates but Billionaire Wilderness reads more like a scholarly thesis. I did not feel the motivation to finish it.
The Customer is Always Wrong
Written by Scott Weiss
Scott is one of my favourite people to follow on social media saying everything we’d all like to say about the bullshit of the modern workplace.
Your Occasional Ham
Best thing that happened to me in 2024:
