Indigenous By Design
October 1, 2026
Eagles and the Sun by Ovila Mailhot for the 2023 Vancouver Lantern City Festival.
By Will Novosedlik
Six designers who are working to reverse the impact of colonial oppression.
The discovery of unmarked graves on the site of the former Kamloops residential school in 2017 was, for me, a deeply disturbing wake-up call.
Until then I was, like the majority of Canadians, only marginally aware of the oppression and dispossession of Canada’s Indigenous population, and completely unaware of the horrific history of the Residential schools. But Kamloops was impossible to ignore. So I decided to learn more.
Since then I have researched and written stories that explore the process of Truth and Reconciliation through a design lens. Some of those were noticed by Anishinaabe designer Mark Rutledge, former head of Design Professionals of Canada and a proud member of Little Grand Rapids First Nation. He contacted me and asked if I would be interested in working with him on a book about Indigenous design. I jumped at it. So we began the process of searching for Indigenous designers from around the world – basically anyplace with a history of colonialism.
We still have a long way to go, but I’ve decided to share some of what we have heard in our conversations with a handful of Indigenous designers from North America, the South Pacific and the Middle East. Sadly space allows for only snippets of what we hope will be much more richly revealed in book form. Many thanks to Mark Rutledge for his patience, guidance and leadership.
When Heritage Matters
Paul Tétrault | Tétro Design | Winnipeg, Manitoba
Visual vocabulary of the identity system created for the world’s first National Indigenous Theatre.
When Paul and Andrea Tétrault announced that they were starting a firm together, people told them they were crazy. The thought was, you can be marriage partners or you can be business partners, but you can’t be both. Twenty-six years later, it’s safe to say Paul and Andrea have proven them wrong.
Limited-run promotional poster for Ride Shimano at Crankworx Whistler 2015, the flagship event of the Crankworx World Tour, held annually in Whistler, BC, widely regarded as the crown jewel of mountain biking festivals.
Paul is Métis on his mother’s side. His pride in being Métis evolved in step with the changing attitudes towards Indigenous culture in general. “When I was young, we identified as francophone, not Métis. But my sons have embraced their Métis heritage with pride. A generation ago, Métis kept their identity on the downlow. But now, you go by a community and there’s a Métis ‘Infinity’ flag flying in every other backyard.”
Tétro’s work is split between cultural and commercial projects for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous clients. On the cultural side, Paul and Andrea have been doing work for the theatre since day one. One of their longstanding clients is Ottawa’s National Arts Centre. In 2019, Tétro was asked to develop the identity and visual assets for the launch of the world’s first National Indigenous Theatre. Launched by a week-long music, dance, visual arts, culinary and theatre festival called Moshkamo, the visual identity and applications ranged from illuminated exterior signage to print and digital assets, all demonstrating a perfect blend of clean, contemporary simplicity and bold Indigenous visual motifs.
For over 15 years, Tétro has partnered with the TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival. This 2018 gig poster features Marquis Hill Blacktet, known for blending jazz with hip-hop, spoken word, and contemporary beats.
In this moment of Indigenous resurgence, is it a competitive advantage to wear your Indigenous creds on your sleeve? It’s situational. Says Tétrault. “We recently lost a pitch in which we purposely made a point of showing and explaining a lot of the Indigenous work that we do, because this was for a northern community. Much to our surprise the client told us we lost because it didn’t feel like we were Indigenous-owned! In other cases, clients will acknowledge that knowing I am Métis makes them more confident that we are the right partners for them. They feel like they don’t have to educate us on how to work with Indigenous clients.”
A Family Affair
Tyrone Ohia | Extended Whanau | Auckland, New Zealand
Visual identity for te tiriti (street action), in collaboration with activist organization ActionStation NZ. The work represents a sign of unity, based on the traditional Maori way of greeting, in which greeters share each other’s breath. The logo has become wildly popular across New Zealand.
The first question we asked founder and Creative Director Tyrone Ohia was, “what does ‘Extended Whanau’ mean?” His answer told us everything we needed to know about what kind of company this is. ‘Whanau’ is the Maori word for ‘family’. “The Maori approach is to do things collectively,” says Ohia. “So our clients are part of our family, and we are part of theirs.”
He goes on to describe the initial stages of Maori client relationship-building: “The Maori process is to go around someone’s house, have a cup of tea, and do a lot of relationship-heavy stuff to actually see eye to eye with each other. We just find it’s a happier way to work. We have very meaningful relationships with everyone. They’re very loyal to us, and we are very loyal to them in return.”
Image promoting the debut solo exhibition of the work of Maori artist Marie Sheehan. The work, called Otairongo, is an audio and visual interpretation of the identity of Maori women.
That approach shows up both literally and symbolically in the logo Extended Whanau did for an independent campaigning organization called Action Station. To mark the first reading of the Treaty of Waitangi – the first treaty between New Zealand and the Maori people – Action Station asked Extended Whanau to work on a campaign that emphasizes Kotahitanga (unity) and the importance of Te Tiriti (the street) for all peoples of Aotearoa (New Zealand).
The logo depicts the Hongi, the iconic Maori greeting. Instead of a handshake, you are meant to rub noses, thereby sharing each other’s breath. Ohia explains, “The first hongi happened when Tane breathed life into Hineahuone and created mankind. Since then, it has been a way for us to share breath, to see eye to eye, and to acknowledge one another. It is a symbol of life and unity.” It is also a reflection of how Ohia and his team always take things back to the cultural roots of Maori mythology.
The mark has become wildly popular. “We see it everywhere on people’s front lawns, in their front windows. It’s, it’s all over the country. I think a lot of that has to do with the state of the nation, of the people wanting to gather behind something. As a designer you don’t expect your work to catch on so massively.”
Walking the Talk
Jennifer Taback | Design de Plume | Sudbury, Ontario
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Identity system for the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health. At its centre is a woven cross, representing the blend between traditional Indigenous medicine and western health sciences.
Indigenous-owned, women-led design firm Design de Plume, an 18-person studio founded and led by Jennifer Taback and Meggan van Harten in 2009, wears its values on its sleeve.
Most design firms tend to either pitch themselves as agents of competitive differentiation – the holy grail of brandmaking – or as intense hives of creative activity delivering cutting-edge visual communications. Either way, the focus is on the work, and rarely on its broader impact.
Logo and assets for the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Indigenous Celebration Game. The logo features a unique shade of blue representing Ontario’s Georgian Bay. The package included a beaded logo framed by o’demiin (strawberries), symbolic of love and strength.
But if you visit Design de Plume’s ‘about’ page, you’ll see a firm that “weaves Indigenous wisdom and women-led innovation to create more inclusive, accessible and sustainable futures.” Such outcomes have never been so important, yet so threatened. Many firms pay lip service to these words but rarely walk the talk.
To put its money where its mouth is, Design de Plume invests as much energy and expertise into education about the work as the work itself. Many of its clients are governmental, educational, cultural and healthcare institutions looking for ways to create space for Indigeneity within their corporate cultures and physical premises. Because Canada is so ethnically diverse, DDP’s clients can come from anywhere. “If you are unfamiliar with the history of Indigeneity in Canada”, says Taback, “we often have to educate that client, which is above and beyond what a more conventional design firm would be willing or able to do.”
Patterns for CBC’s 2024 Olympics broadcasts.
One of DDP’s more notable recent projects was to design Indigenous patterns to be used on all of the digital and broadcast assets for CBC’s 2024 Olympics programming. Indigenous Design lead Jennica Robinson created, in a traditional style reflecting her Anishinaabe background, a pattern of curvilinear floral motifs representing the 12 provinces and territories, while designer Laura Polchies created a geometric pattern drawn from the beadwork, basketry and quillwork of her Wabanaki origins. Both patterns harmonize well with the Art Deco-inspired PARIS 24 logotype they were given to work with.
Combining these two aesthetic traditions demonstrates another core value of Design De Plume: the concept of Two-Eyed-Seeing. Originally introduced by Mi’kmaq elder Albert Marshall, it means to view the world through both Western and Indigenous knowledge and to learn to use both eyes together for the benefit of all. It has worked so well that DDP is in initial talks with the CBC about the 2032 Olympics.
Design Under Fire
Nawal Arafat | Independent Designer | Jaffa, Israel
Part of the visual identity system for the Paley Art Centre in East Jerusalem. As East Jerusalem’s only municipal art centre, it offers art courses, summer camps, artists’ workshops, exhibitions, lectures and movie screenings.
Palestinian designer Nawal Arafat was visibly upset when we spoke with her in late March. She lives in Jaffa, which is the oldest part of Tel Aviv. Twelve hours earlier, in the middle of the night, air raid sirens across the city sounded as rockets fell from Yemen. Eight hours after that, the air raid sirens sounded again as rockets fell from Gaza.
Like many of her Palestinian friends and colleagues, Nawal is keeping a low profile. She lives in a mixed neighbourhood of Arab-Palestinians and Jewish Israelis but feels increasingly unsafe and disconnected from Israeli residents since the October 7 attack. Says Nawal, “With the arrest of so many friends and colleagues, we have no choice other than to keep quiet about our Palestinian identity and to keep our voices down against the war on Gaza.” Many members of her family who lived in Gaza have been killed during the bombardment by Israeli Defence Forces.
Nawal’s own safety was threatened when, just after October 7, she reposted a message about how it was now impossible for the 2 million or so other Palestinians to speak out without being threatened. She was immediately shamed on social media and harassed by her Israeli students.
A Teacher of Hebrew and Arabic typography for the last several years at Shenkar Academy of Engineering, Art and Design in Ramat Gan and Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Nawal has been a very active member of the Israeli design community, doing vital research on the use of Arabic in public spaces, participating in exhibitions and design events like Israel Design Week and speaking about her work at design conferences. To protect herself, she has now refrained from much of that public activity.
Poster for the 2021 London Biennale of Design pavilion of the Middle Eastern cross-disciplinary association Designers in the Middle. Named ‘Casbah’, the pavilion featured the work of Arab designers from around the Middle East including Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Kuwait and Qatar.
Her work can be viewed as an act of language preservation. While still a student, she noticed that on most public signage in Israel the Hebrew text was flawless while the Arabic text was often sloppy and riddled with errors. She set out to map these inconsistencies with a view to improving the situation. “There is a policy of erasure and exclusion of our language, culture, and history as Palestinians – led by government officials.” Says Nawal.
It’s classic settler-colonialism: if you destroy the language, you destroy the culture and ultimately erase a people’s identity and history. It is the prelude to erasing the people themselves.
We’re Not All Swiss
Shaun Vincent | Vincent Design | Winnipeg, Manitoba
Entitled “Speckled Lurkers”, this is one of a series of 8 large murals done for Red River College, Winnipeg. In these striking images, storytelling and imagery intertwine to create powerful messages of community, determination and love.
Anyone who is old enough to have graduated from a post-secondary design program before 2010 will most likely have been indoctrinated in the principles of Eurocentric modernism. Principles like simplicity, clarity, asymmetry, scalability, a preference for the photographic over the illustrative and an almost religious belief in universalism. What was good for the Swiss was good for everyone else.
When it came to visual identity design, the simpler the better. It had to be as visible when reduced to the head of a pin as it would be on a billboard. It was not meant to carry meaning, but rather to convey uniqueness. The classic example is the Nike swoosh: utterly meaningless but universally recognizable.
For Shaun Vincent, who is as much an illustrator as he is a designer, every logo tells a story. Rather than being highly reductive abstractions, Vincent’s logos are intricately interwoven visual narratives that draw inspiration from traditional Indigenous teachings and symbolism, as revealed in conversations with Elders and Knowledge Keepers. As Vincent says in his column (Every logo has a story) “design isn’t just about form and function—it’s about honouring traditions, amplifying voices, and ensuring that stories are told with integrity.”
For the Indigenous Physicians of Canada Vincent Design created a logo with healing illustrative elements. The Inuit qulliq (oil lamp) is for light and caring for others; the Métis sash represents warmth and protection; the eagle represents love, courage, strength and hope; and the caribou is a symbol of food and sustenance.
While it’s quite fashionable these days for designers, creative directors and marketers to call themselves storytellers, Indigenous people have been telling their stories for thousands of years. Stories are the connective tissue of culture. Sever the tissue and you kill the culture—which is exactly what the Residential Schools were designed to do.
The Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI) is one of the world’s largest environmental networks. The new brand identity represents their work in environmental challenges, sustainable development, and work with Indigenous communities across the globe.
The cultural erasure and intergenerational trauma experienced by so many Indigenous communities means that seeing themselves and their visual narratives represented with pride and authenticity can be very emotional. “On more than one occasion, when presenting our ideas to elders, people have been brought to tears”, says Vincent. “This idea of healing is so profound for them that when they see something created for an initiative that they are passionate about, it gives them hope, it gives them confidence, it gives them everything they need to proudly go and stand in front of governments or corporations and negotiate from a psychological position of strength.”
Salish and Symbolic
Ovila Mailhot | Salish Son | Lafayette, Indiana
“Sisiutl” is a two-headed sea serpent, often depicted with a human face. It can symbolize protection, power, and balance. For warriors it symbolizes invulnerability. For medicine people it is a symbol of healing. Commissioned by Indigenous designer Scarlet Delirium in Vancouver.
If there is a visual equivalent of Indigenous language preservation and revitalization, it can be found in the work of designer and artist Ovila Mailhot.
Born and raised on the Coast Salish Seabird Island Reserve in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, he has since 2020 made Lafayette, Indiana his home. As an artist and designer, Mailhot sees himself as neither traditional nor contemporary, but as both. “My work is an affirmation of the culture, but also a political statement. Because if I draw a trigon or a crescent shape – elements that have been used for thousands of years by my ancestors – this is an art form that was almost taken away from our people through colonization, through residential school. Simply drawing one of those elements is a political statement that says, ‘Hey, I’m still here. Our people are still here. Yeah. Our culture and our tradition are still intact.”
A great example of what he means can be seen in the contribution he made to the 2023 Vancouver Lantern City Festival. (main image) Mailhot explains the imagery: “The sun is in the middle, surrounded by four eagle heads. The eagles represent the ancestors of the four directions that I pray to. And surrounding the four eagles are the four plant medicines that we still use: sage, sweet grass, tobacco, and cedar, which are also a reference to the four stages of life: infant, adolescent, adult and elder. We see eagles as messengers whenever we do our prayer and ceremony. The Eagles take our prayers up to the creator because they fly closest to the creator. And in return, we receive blessings. I always felt that through my prayers of wanting to be an artist and designer I really started receiving those blessings.”
“Separation anxiety”.
Mailhot sometimes uses Coast Salish imagery as a basis for re-interpretation and individual expression. After not seeing his son for an extended period, he expressed his separation anxiety as a killer whale split in two from head to tail. While the top of the whale utilizes traditional Coast Salish elements (trigons and crescents), the bottom departs from the traditional and reads as a flat, contemporary graphic. “Killer whales are very iconic to the Pacific Northwest,” explains Mailhot. “For me personally, killer whales are symbol for family because whenever they travel in the ocean, they’re always together in a pod, as family. So whenever I design a killer whale, I’m thinking about family or friends back home.”
About the Author
Will Novosedlik is a Toronto-based designer, writer and editor. He is known for a critical perspective on the socioeconomic impact of design, advertising and marketing.
This story originally appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Applied Arts magazine. Subscribe for just $19.99 a year. Click here.
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