The Creative Process

Happy Friday and August Long Weekend! I'm off to one of my favourite places anywhere this weekend - the beautiful Hornby Island. If you haven't visited this little piece of paradise, Hornby Island is located off the coast of Vancouver Island and features gorgeous beaches, awesome mountain biking and hiking, and generally some of the most beautiful coastal scenery BC has to offer, all in a rustic and laid back environment. Though I've only been back from Europe for five or so weeks, I'm looking forward to a little getaway, as my schedule has been jam-packed lately, coordinating and creating the upcoming Fall 2013 collection amongst all of the usual life stuff! 

Speaking of the new Fall line, there 

are still a few weeks to go until the collection will go live on our website and in stores, but I can promise there will be more sneak peeks in the interim for all of you newsletter subscribers to check out (you can sign up below this blog post if you're not already privy to these)! While my process of creating a new collection is still being fine-tuned and evolving, I thought I'd share a bit of insight into how a new collection comes to be.

To begin with, my mind is always scheming and planning and noting ideas for future pieces and collections, so it's tough to say when plotting a new collection actually begins. While I don't have a proper sketchbook to house all of my ideas (though I should probably get one!), I do like to make (very) rough drawings of ideas I have (usually on random scraps of paper - as inspiration always seems to strike when I'm ill-prepared), or save photographs of designs that I come across in magazines or online that I like. Sometimes a piece that I'm envisioning won't get made for months and months, but it's nice to know it's there in my mind's eye, when the right moment or inspiration strikes. 

As far as choosing a colour palette and gemstones for a collection, sometimes it builds around a particular gemstone I love (in the case of some amazonite beauties I found and the Spring 2013 line), and other times it just sort of evolves based on a mood or look I'm trying to create. I have had to make a concerted effort to create pieces that complement one another, and showcase well together, even though I sometimes feel inclined to create just a haphazard assortment of pretty jewels! It's fun to give myself certain guidelines and parameters to work within though, and think it can ironically help push me to be more creative and to create collections that are the most exciting and appealing. 

Do I ever end up creating pieces that I don't like or that I take apart? Yes, and while I definitely have moments where everything I produce seems to somehow "not work" - otherwise known as "I hate EVERYTHING!" - this generally happens when I am tired, and have been working too long, and I know it's just time to call it a night. More often though, a piece may just need a few tweaks in order for it to be "right." And while I sometimes find myself soliciting the opinion of a friend, or even, agad!, my boyfriend, most of my design work is done in solidarity. It's sort of exciting just to blindly create - and also a bit scary - to produce a whole collection before getting feedback from anyone else. To be honest, while I truly hope that every new line I launch will be met with rave reviews and love, by the time I am finished creating a collection it's a sense of having put my best design foot forward and accepting the outcome as it is.

Well, there is a little insight into how my dreaming and scheming and creating goes. To be honest, it's all a bit haphazard at times, but for me, it works, and I'm sure it will evolve as I learn and grow as a designer. If you're an artistic type yourself, I'd love to hear what your own creative process looks like!