Amy Dixon Art

Amy Dixon is an Edmonton-based visual artist. Her work is informed by her early French upbringing in Nova Scotia and finds an endless supply of inspiration through her travels across Canada and the globe. Amy’s passion to paint and share visual stories doesn’t end at the canvas, she manages her entire collection too, with collections released directly through her website. We were approached to develop a brand identity with a focus on packaging and enriching her customers experience. She also kept a detailed journal of the process, see it here.

Approach

Developing an identity for an artist who’s work has its own visual characteristics and identity is a delicate thing. On one hand, there is a practical need to use the most recognizable assets to signal ownership (her artwork), on the other hand there is a risk of cheapening and dating the artwork if used too heavily.

As we set out to craft an identity for Amy “the artist” we needed to strike a balance between creating a visual identity that felt like Amy but didn’t lean too heavily on her paintings and recognizable style. We looked to Amy’s past and took notes from her upbringing in a small French village in Nova Scotia — a large source of Amy’s inspiration and where she discovered her love for place and natural beauty. The result was a suite of visual assets that all told a story.

The custom monogram acts as Amy’s stamp of authenticity, her signature. Artful in its own way, it acts as a supporting visual that ads strength to her work. The showstopper is the pictogram — already present in her brand (original image by Karmen Meyer), it immortalizes her in shape and colour and captures her plein air painting (painting outside).