City Design Tour: Charlottetown

Ashe Green RGD, Designer & Creative Director at Hijinks Design Agency, shares the design experience for her city, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

What makes your city’s design scene special/unique? 

We’re a small city with an excellent graphic design program offered at Holland College. The program attracts students internationally, so we have a beautiful showcase of design cultures every year. 

Local industry professionals are quite involved with curriculum, portfolio reviews, speaking engagements and advisory boards at the College, so students get a lot of one-on-one time and opportunities to build relationships before they graduate. The College also holds an annual Art and Design Conference called DotGain. 

The community is incredibly connected for this reason, which is really special. 

Is there a place/landmark in your city that helps inspire you as a designer? 

I would be remiss if I didn’t give a nod to our world-class theatre and art gallery, the Confederation Centre of the Arts. Right now, we have this brilliant Erica Rutherford exhibit. She was a real trailblazer as a Transgender British-Canadian artist, filmmaker, and writer. Her artwork features bold colour blocking and contrasting colours. It’s a visual feast for a graphic designer. The Centre itself is also a design landmark due to its brutalist architecture. And, if you lack creative energy, a walk through Charlottetown's downtown area is bound to get your mind racing with new ideas.

Are there any challenges that designers in your city face?

There are challenges being a designer on a small island of approximately 180,000 people. It can be difficult to break into business since many relationships are formed over years of shared experiences and family connections. However, since we’re more connected globally than ever, there’s a lot of opportunity to work with clients or sell products off-Island. Many local designers have online stores, sell design assets on platforms like Creative Market and find clients through online platforms. With COVID came the normalization of remote work, which has always worked well for freelance designers and that’s helped address this local challenge.