About me

Hello! You may know me as Mand0lin or Mandilyn but you can call me Mandi for short, or Man for even shorter. I'm a freelance illustrator, graphic designer and member of the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD).I believe that every person has a story to tell. Whether it’s a product, a service, a book or illustration, I believe every person has something they’d like to see change in the world.My goal as a creative is to actualize your vision, to elegantly articulate your stories in ways that allow the world to appreciate them the way they deserve.

PORTFOLIO

• Illustration

• Graphic Design

Here is where you can find a select catalogue of my design work, complete with an organized sketchbook, final presentations, mock-ups created with Adobe Dimension, and insight into the process of each project. I specially selected each piece to reflect both my capabilities and diversity in design, but also to reflect my design specialty and style.If you'd like to view some of my personal illustration work, I've included that here as well! While I have a very large quantity of illustration work, I've chosen some of my best (and favourite) pieces that reflect my strengths, diversity of tone, and personal style as an illustrator. If you'd like to see more of either, visit my Instagrams.

About

While I may have started as an artist, my passion to create does not end there. I love all mediums of creation.As someone who enjoys story based illustration and creating a message through my art, there is no better career match for me than Graphic Design. Design is all about sending a message, telling a story, or simply selling a product in a way that is visually engaging.Communication is the heart of humanity, our ability to understand and be understood is what drives so many of our creative decisions. I find the way people understand and interact with the world fascinating, and I like to design in ways that appeal to peoples humanity.I enjoy design that is fun and filled with personality. There's a challenge to create something visually engaging, that has all the necessary information while still being is playful. In a way, I try to design for all audiences.

About

I have been illustrating traditionally for over 10 years (and digitally for 6), in that time I have drawn over a thousand digital and traditional pieces and hope to create more as I continue my artistic/design career. I create mostly for the fun of it, I love writing stories, making up characters and fleshing out worlds to explore in my free time. My mind is always wandering, so I choose to let it roam to interesting places. Because of my imaginative mind I greatly enjoy creating story based illustrations, usually pertaining to myself (or my persona) and my original characters of which I have been developing for the better part of seven years.My dream is to one day have a fully written and illustrated comic book, but the road to that is long and arduous (but also very exciting). Until the day comes where I have the time to illustrate my stories, I simply continue to practice my craft through detailed, singular illustrations, exploration of character and set design, and lots and lots of dramatic lighting. If you'd ever like help visually exploring your own worlds and imaginative thoughts, feel free to commission me! (commission status is displayed on the front page of my website).

The following is a digital sketchbook that showcases a variety of written brainstorming, visual compositions and sketches, as well as moodboards, colour palettes, and original versions of revised portfolio pieces. This sketch book has pages dedicated to each portfolio piece in the "Design" section of my portfolio. There is also a table of contents at the beginning to clarify where one project begins and another ends. Please allow a few seconds for the slideshow to load.Much of my creative process is not inherently done in one sketchbook, rather it is done on any paper available to me, in which I then collect, organize, photograph & digitize, and date each respective piece of preliminary work in order. I do often enjoy working digitally and this is where preliminary work tends to be done in one place, hand drawn sketches and colour experimentation have their own special file as will later, cleaned up renditions, mock-ups, finalized palettes, reference images, moodboards, etc.

The objective of this school assignment was to come up with a concept for an app, ideally something that hasn’t been done before, and create a working prototype. The prototype was to walk the user through one specific pathway (user flow). For my app I wanted to do something relating to drawing, not an app that users can draw IN (there are hundreds of those), an app that helps users learn to draw. There are a few apps out there that advertise themselves as tools that help artists learn, but their execution is poor and mostly teaches users how to trace stock illustrations. I wanted an app that encouraged users to draw freely.From there, I thought to create an app that specially curates in depth lessons to users based on their preference of medium, style, and level of experience that also encourages habitual practice. I came up with Drawn In, an app that provides in depth tutorials starting with fundamentals and slowly evolving into the specified medium and style the user inputs upon registering their account. My prototype walks the user, who has already registered, through the login, daily practice session, and learning session. Curious to learn even more? Click the "Prototype" button below to see it full in figma!

The concept of this project was to create a 10 page non-fiction book prototype. The first thing I thought of for this assignment was something that combined both science and spirituality, thus "Behind the Eyes: A Guide to Life Beyond Consciousness" was born. The aesthetics and overall energy of my prototype was greatly inspired by both novels that discuss zodiacs and tarot, as well as dream journals and notebooking. I started to think up imagery that related to “opening your third eye” the concept of “lucid dreaming” and trying to capture the odd nature of dreams.As for the book itself, I wanted to target it at young adults and those interested in learning about concepts such as "Lucid Dreaming", "Guided Meditation" and how "Sleep" works in a scientific sense. With these topics in mind, I wanted to design visuals that were vibrant yet calming, encouraging both relaxation and creativity. A colour palette that has soothing shades of purple with exciting accents of orange to play with the dichotomy of how, despite our static bodies, our minds go to exhilarating, beautiful, and terrifying places.

This assignment was very open, create a package design for an old toy, object, or trinket, something that doesn’t have packaging (or if it did you don’t remember). When I looked at an old squish donut toy on my desk, I knew it would be perfect. There were two major concepts I could play with with my trinket of choice, bakery desserts & childrens toy. The first thing I thought to do was think of branding, it’s easier to design packaging when you have established branding rules. I thought of soft, playful, bakery packaging, pastel colours, and those cute fake food toys companies like fisher-price make.This quickly turned into "Soft Spot" a name that references both the tenderness and squishability of the toy I picked, as well as the term "That Hits the Spot" after eating something particularly delicious. The packaging is of course inspired by confectionary and bakery packaging with a childlike twist of colour to reflect the appearance of the toy. As I finished my chosen digital concept I remembered somethings, the donut toy didn’t come with any packaging for one (just a little tag) but it also was part of a series of different squish toys (popcorn, fries, a burger etc.) and so I thought I would imply the same thing with my packaging, creating tiny icons of other baked goods to put on either side of my box.

This assignment was to create a brochure for the fictional art showcase, Organica1, a showcase at the MOMA that features various forms of art inspired by “natural patterns”. A key aspect of this assignment was that the brochure was to be duo chromatic, only two colours (and any shades they made mixed together) could be used. Being an ocean lover, my first thought was to do something relating to that. So, I started to compile images from various sources (unsplash) to build a moodboard, finding images that I thought were pretty and making connections between them. What were the elements of the ocean I was leaning towards?Based on my collection, I clearly enjoyed imagery relating to the waves of the ocean, but also what was underneath them. I also found I enjoyed light turquoise, but also navy blues. I wanted to play with contrast, wanting the outside of my brochure to be chaotic, showcasing the strength and power the ocean's surface. While on the inside, demonstrating the calm, soothing atmosphere beneath the waves. Then came the debate of colour, I eventually settled on deep, royal blues as it provided good contrast and overall made the final brochure feel refreshing.

The assignment for this was very open, create an infographic about a topic of your choice, that is roughly 11 by 17 inches. For my infographic I thought it would be interesting to try and make something decorative but still informative, like a poster, thus a timeline of Coca-Cola bottles was my starting idea. From there I established themes of vintage colours and pop-art, and came up with the vending machine motif. I did some experimentation in illustrator, such as whether or not to add the liquid in the bottle.As I came to complete the project however, I realized something with more information would have made a better info-graphic. I knew exactly what brand met what I wanted, Pepsi. I took all the elements from the previous iteration and I started work on my Pepsi infographic. I wanted to keep a lot of the same motifs as I thought it’d be fitting, especially since Pepsi has also started to take a more modern vintage approach with their can design and also the fact that Pepsi was created after the invention of the refrigerator, so having the cans in a vending machine made more sense historically.

This assignment, which was for a Print Production class, was to create a tote bag design for any one of Centennial’s College courses. I thought it’d be fitting to design a tote bag for the Graphic Design course. So I started to think of what could be an interesting graphical design that represents what student designers might like. I thought of patterns and motifs and interesting effects that showed my unique capabilities. After being told the totebag had to be about Graphic Design, not just a design that is graphic, I hit a roadblock. I started to quickly think of what pertains to graphic design, computers, design programs and digital tools.This is where my revised version comes in, this time I had a plan. I took inspiration from various design motifs and trends, this time I wanted to show off what Centennial Story Art Students are capable of and pay homage to various aspects of graphic design history, such as the invention of the digital computer, the founding of Centennial, and the founding of its Story Arts Centre. This time I had the experience with design and ample amounts of inspiration to quickly create a new design in half the time of the original.

For my Ads and Copyright course, we were assigned to create a series of 3 mobile ads for the Canadian job finding website Eluta. The first thing I thought of was the audience. I wanted to aim my ad campaign at a solid demographic that would make for good imagery, young adults, especially those who might be trying to find their first job. I also thought it would be smart to create a campaign for a potential Eluta App or mobile service (similar to Linkedin or Indeed) as young adults have the highest percentage of mobile use. Due to time restrictions I opted to use photography, which made my campaign look dark and brooding, when what I needed was energy.For my revised campaign, I had gained a lot more experience and speed with my workflow and already had a good idea of how I could re approach my idea. For this revised campaign. I thought to go to my comfort zone, just this once, and illustrated the phones, converted them to vector graphics and created the final series inDesign, where I could use bright, youthful colours (that were also retrieved from Eluta’s website).

This project was created for my Motion Graphics course. The goal was simple, create an animation, no more than 10 seconds, demonstrating the animation for two screens of an app. The app was of our own choosing, we could do an animation for a specific company or we could create a new app concept/design. From the start I knew I wanted to do something music related, there's so many subtle moving parts to User Interface design within music apps that I wanted to make sure everything was perfect, right down to the minute movements of the users scroll animations and progression of the time bar.The design itself was something I wanted to play with a little, creating a more pop-art and colourful app design to really target a young, music loving demographic. Perhaps this is a music app catered to young teens and tweens. Or perhaps an app with robust playlist features. Either way, the minutia (target audience, purpose, capabilities) wasn't of great necessity this time, but they were things I kept in mind as I was designing.

Researched, scripted, voiced over, and animated by me, this animated infographic was but one part of a three part series for my Data Visualization and Infograph course. The goal of this overarching assignment was to send a message visually, using data and statistics to tell a story. The topic was ours to choose, however, it was to contain at least four pieces of comparative data to help tell our story and (of course) be effective at proving its point.Given how emphasized dental hygienics are I believed there would be ample comparative data for all things relating to oral health that dentists and orthodontists recommend. Flossing, brushing, interdental brushes and mouthwash, I ended up finding out how highly contested the topic of oral hygiene is, but to me that made my message stronger. Regardless of the countless blogs debating the effectiveness of flossing or mouthwash, the data was there to prove it's importance and I was sure to use it!

Google Request Form. I work under the assumption that you have read, understood and agree to the terms.

Commission Process

Once I receive the request form, I will contact the commissioner through their preferred method. Further details about the request and pricing can be discussed.Upon pricing agreement the commissioner is to pay a minimum of half the agreed upon fee.Sketch(s) will be shown, adjustments can be made. Upon sketch approval the commissioner is to pay any outstanding fee so the commission can be finalized.Lastly, the final commission will be sent through a digital method of the commissioners choice: socials, e-Mail, etc.

Right to Refuse

I have the right to refuse any commission request for any reason, at any time. I have to right to cancel* a commission for any reason, at any time. *Artist cancelled commissions will be fully refunded

• Ko-Fi
• Stripe
• Paypal

Payment

Payment can be made through Ko-Fi, Stripe, or Paypal. It is recommended to document transaction confirmation.Prices are in CND (Canadian) and depend on; complexity of piece, number of characters, size of piece, time required, and rendering technique. Below are examples of each type of work I have for sale and their prices. Note: the price for additional characters is half (1/2) or 50% the base price.

Refunds & Rules

A commissioner has the right to cancel their order for any reason, at any time. A partial refund of 50% of the will be given. Commissioners are not liable for refunds for completed or almost completed work. Incomplete work will not be given upon commission cancellation.

WILL DO

WON'T DO

Legal Usage

My commissions are not to be resold or profited off of commercially without credit, partial compensation per purchase no less than 10%, or written agreement otherwise. Commissions are not to be traced or passed off as one's own and are not to be used to train AI image creation software of any kind. You may repost with credit.

Digital Currencies

I do not create or sell NFT's (Non Fungible Tokens) of my work or accept NFT's for my work. My commissions are sold for real currency and must be paid for with real currency. No crypto coins allowed, thank you.

Slots

Slot availability will be noted in my Instagram bio and in the Commission Section. Slots are given on a first come, first serve basis *If you're patient, feel free to send a request anytime. While commissions are notably opened, please allow 3-5 business days for me to reply to requests, thankyou.

Prices

Prices are in CND (Canadian) and depend on; complexity of piece and number of characters. Below are examples of each type of work I have for sale and their prices. Note: the price for additional characters is half (1/2) the base price.

• Form

A Final Note

Don’t be afraid to ask questions before committing, it is your money after all, send me an e-mail here if you have any questions, comments or concerns. If you want to propose a type or style of drawing I haven’t mentioned in this document, feel free.While I do not outwardly sell sketches or partial work, you can certainly get a sketch, lineart, flat colour or half rendered artwork for slightly cheaper than their finished iterations.