b'INDIGENOUS DESIGNto have the greatest impact and the Johns and Meawasigegreatest legacy. are influenced by their Indigenous values in their design work for Indspire What are your favourite kinds of projects to work on? MM: Im really drawn to anything that involves community and thoughtful or intentional process because I think that makes for successful design. One of the logos that I worked on was for a group at U of T that functions as a pathway into STEM programs for Indigenous youth: Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag. With that project, I was approached good relationships is keyif someoneto be told is really important to me:by Elder Whabagoon, so we got to is struggling or having a problem thatthat its done well, in a way thatshave a really good talk about the design can fix, then they can comefeeding back to community and toimpact of the work that they were to us. Having a team approach is alsoIndigenous students.doing and how they really wanted very helpfulwe need to make suresomething that could function as the standard is upheld. I think that utilizing the resourcesan emblem of the work they were that we have access to and havingcreating. I love that I got to work MM: To me, its really important,a greater impact involves design. Ifon that.because there arent so manywere successful in what we do, well Indigenous designers to begin with,reach more students, look betterThe process involved lots of listening; and the pool gets smaller whento sponsors, have better outreachI listened to whatever she wanted you take into account the fact thatand better engagement. Even ourto tell me about what they were were young and were women, soreports: if we do them well, stressingdoing. I shared my process with were at a really critical juncturethe impact that weve had, thenthe youth as well. Then they would in that we have the very specialthat gets more impact than a reportshare feedback, and then wed go opportunity to be at the helm of ourthats poorly designed. Design playsback and forth through revisions. own narrativewhich historicallya critical role in the success of anyThey also got insight into what it was has been taken away from us. Soorganization. Being a custodian oflike to be a freelance designer, and to have that opportunity to tell ourthat feels like a huge opportunity tothey also had a hand in the work. I own story in a way that we want ituse every tool we have at our disposalnever would have created the same thing without their voices involved! It became a beautiful logo, but more than anything, it was the process of getting there: it held the story of the work.MJ: I really love doing Indspires events stuff. Coming up with an identity for events and then applying it across multiple assets is really satisfying for me. Seeing those things presented on such a large scalestage, signage, booklets, websiteis so satisfying. Seeing them all in a space where not a lot of representation is there is very nice too. Its also such a learning experience: seeing how people interact with design helps inform our decisions for future projects.54indspiration2025'