Elevator In our continuing pursuit to find the best channel to transmit our client’s messages, we have always loved exploring the power of imagery through graphic design and photography. Both of these are crafts where professionals create visual content to communicate messages, so it’s no surprise that ELEVATOR wants to hone in on this craft.
Introducing Victoria Moreno, our Graphic Designer and Photographer. Born and raised in Zambia, Africa, Victoria moved to Canada to study Visual Arts at York University. During her schooling, Victoria developed a certain fascination for graphic design due to its calculated simplicity, all the way to its overall ideology of form follows function.
How would you describe your approach to design?
My approach to design comes with a sense of curiosity and enthusiasm. I find it is always somewhat exciting to take on a new design project because it is a creative challenge in itself, from “what am I creating” to “what am I communicating” to “how am I going to do it?”. It takes a certain level of curiosity to step outside the box and think about how am I going to effectively communicate something or solve a problem in the abstract visual language of design. How you choose to communicate the intended message/solution is what makes it exciting, along with the limitless possibilities of pushing your creative capabilities.
Are there any other mediums or forms of art you like to work in?
Yes, I am also a digital and film photographer. That was essentially my speciality in university. I am also an illustrator. I have always sketched, painted and even MS painted back in the day when we had dial up internet, but as of recently I have been heavy into storyboarding and creating little comics both on paper and digitally.
How do you get inspired?
I believe inspiration is its own energy that if forced, can be quite inauthentic. Hence people get creative blocks. Getting someone to be inspired or creative takes a little bit of “tricking the mind” in order to allow the heart and soul to take control. I find I have to position myself in a way that makes me believe that what I am trying to tackle is something I want to do and not need to do. That way I can approach it from a place of love, curiosity and excitement.
What are your passions besides your work?
Travel (even though we aren’t allowed to travel right now), music and food. I believe these three allow you to open your mind, body and soul to the endless possibilities the world and its people have to offer. It allows you to better understand, explore, and gain experiences/perspectives that you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten anywhere else.
What would you say is your strongest skill and how have you honed that skill over the years?
I would have to say diligence. Life has constantly set up these set of obstacles ever since I chose to pursue the creative/artistic path. Of course this was never meant to deter me or put me down from achieving success, rather they were set to test my diligence; to what degree did I really want to achieve something.
Growing up in the developing country of Zambia, art is not really valued as a respectable career. I only managed to take my first proper Visual Arts course in grade 11, when I started the intensive IB (International Baccalaureate) program, but through this I managed to get accepted into the Visual Arts program at York University. I solely ended up coming to Canada to pursue my BFA and eventually graduated with honours, however amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. I used these unprecedented and isolating times to work on my freelance and after searching for months on end, I finally managed to get hired at Elevator as a graphic designer/photographer.
Each barrier I overcame, came with its own lesson and growth.
This pathway isn’t for the faint hearted. It takes a lot of courage, hard work and perseverance but it is extremely rewarding. It’s through this journey where you really learn how to become diligent in what you do and believe.
How do you see the field of graphic design changing in the next few years?
Graphic Design in the next coming years is going to drastically revolutionise the way we see and experience our world. We will have new methods of communicating in various multi-dimensional forms from the inclusion of 3D modelling to augmented and virtual reality. The kind of opportunities created through these platforms will allow creatives to create designs that might even make you reconsider the reality of the way we think we can experience things on a visual field, especially with the rapid development and improvement of graphics and technological devices/processors.
It’s truly an exciting time to experience what can be offered. It’s like giving a video game character a new set of opportunities to create a digital world and giving them the tools needed in order to go down that pathway/journey. Each will end up creating, exploring and telling their own unique experiences and creations.