First year student, Aleks Jones, has a passion for both digital and analog photography, film, architecture, fashion, and vintage cars
Aleks Jones, IDEA School of Design student (Grad 2023), loves photography and recently got into analog photography. He edited the colours of his self-portrait photos (shown above) to resemble the “film look” for IDES 133 - Visual Studio taught by Jay Bassan.
Read Aleks’ story and check out some of his other photography, design, painting and illustration work for a glimpse into first-year student life at IDEA School of Design at Capilano University.
by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
I love photography, so having a camera in my self-portrait (shown above) was a must. I also recently got into analog photography, so I edited the colours of the photos to resemble the “film look”.
Moodboard by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
When I first started creating my personal mood board, I was finding it quite difficult to fit all my different passions into one board, since I enjoy so many different things. However, I eventually had to narrow it down to my favorite things such as photography/film, architecture, fashion, and vintage cars.
“The assignment: Create a mood board visualizing your Passion, Super Power, Values, Purpose and differentiation (students can use any medium for this).
The goal: To have students think clearly about how to imagine themselves as a brand and use their final self-portrait as an expression of that. This becomes one of the more interesting projects, since it happens near the end of class and students are now comfortable enough with the camera. I get some very interesting work.”
Self portrait photography by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
My final photo for a self portrait assignment, for my Photography class (IDES 133 - Visual Studio with instructor, Jay Bassan). I tried to incorporate many things that I love and define me while still showing myself in the photo, so I decided to do a double exposure shoot for this one.
Self portrait double exposure photography by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
“Urban Mountains” by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
As I was walking around lower Lonsdale, looking for something to photograph, the roof of one of the buildings caught my eye, as it reminded me of the mountain skyline on the North Shore.
“Reflections” by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
I was challenged by my instructor Jay, to use reflection in one of my photos. I noticed the way the glass distorted figures on one of the buildings, and I found it quite interesting, so I captured it.
What got you into photography?
I've been doing photography/videography for about 3 years now. I think photography has come quite naturally to me since I've always been passionate about design. I believe design and photography are very relative to each other. So many elements that I have learned through design have influenced and helped my photography, and vise versa.
What I love most about photography/videography is its ability to capture a moment and lock it forever.
Design, Illustration & Painting
Here are some additional pieces of work created by Aleks in his first year at IDEA School of Design at Capilano University in North Vancouver.
“West Van Senior Project” by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
A favourite project from first year. The seniors project was a project for my Design Thinking class taught by Dominique Walker. The project was to interview a senior from the West Vancouver Senior Centre, and gather their most valuable life lessons. With this information we were to create a motivational poster for university students.
“Elevated Living, logo design” by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
A logo design I created for my Design Fundamentals class, which we had to hand paint. The logo I designed was for a fictional custom luxury treehouse company, named “Elevated Living”. This logo was fun to design, as I tried to incorporate as many symbols as possible in my logo without making it too complicated.
“The Revenant” book cover design by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
A book cover I designed for an expressive typographic book cover assignment, for my “Survey and Principals of Design II” class. I chose to design a cover for the book, “The Revenant” as it is one of my favourite books. I wanted to include the bear in the cover, since it’s such an important part of the story, while still incorporating expressive typography, so I combined both elements into one.
Football self-portrait in oil by Aleksandar Jones (IDEA Grad 2023)
An oil painting I did for a full figure oil portrait assignment, in the Survey and Principals of Illustration class. I had a lot of fun with this assignment, as I’m more design focused than illustration focused, so trying something that I was not used to (this was my second ever oil painting) was really fun and enjoyable. The painting is a self portrait of me back when I used to play football.
Why did you choose IDEA School of Design over other schools?
I chose to attend the IDEA program because of its focus on industry-based learning. Having teachers who are currently working in the industry, puts the IDEA program above other programs since they are able to teach students the needed skills to compete in today's world. Also having small class sizes puts students at a huge advantage.
If you would like to see more of my photography work feel free to follow me on instagram @aleksvisuals and if your interested in more of my design and illustration work follow me @aleks.designs.
