MEC (MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT CO-OP)
Graphic Development
Mountain Equipment Co-op (“MEC”) is a Canadian retail co-operative owned and directed by its members to inspire and enable active outdoor lifestyles. The MEC in-house label is rooted in the PNW mood, celebrating mountain culture, escapism, and the great outdoors, with environmental responsibility at it’s core.
Fans of my outdoor illustration work, MEC approached me to commission designs for their Spring / Summer 2020 in-house apparel line. The gender neutral graphics would support their organization’s initiatives in Leave No Trace, Catching Sunrise, and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. All my illustrations started first as sketches, then moved to pen and ink before converting into vector form and finalizing in four seasonal color ways. The graphic collection aimed to embrace the important message of mindfulness, the joy of adventure, and spirit of our wild places.
With the success of my 2018 collection I was hired again to design MEC’s Fall / Winter 2020 women’s collection. They had two goals. They wanted to make their brand DNA front and center with creative logo iterations. They also hoped to highlight their environmental efforts with illustrative treatments using the brand phrases “Good Stuff Only” and “Less But Better”. Playing with their logo, I brought some fresh and fun expressions, visualizing MEC’s symbiosis with nature and the diverse ways you can explore our great Earth. Following that PNW aesthetic and the important part each of us play in nature’s conservation, I created a hand-drawn typographic set literally rooted in nature.
