Alberta born Cree artist, George Littlechild came to spend the morning with us as part 2 of a wonderful collaboration with aboriginal students and faculty at Capilano University. He asked the class to use their intuition to create an image, or symbol that represented them: something that would touch their souls and bring them comfort.

Grad 2015 promises to be a great show, with some amazing design work and more than our usual number of illustration grads. Show runs April 13 - 17, 2015 at Harbour Centre in Vancouver.

IDEA students were lucky to be invited to see the incredibly talented Ola Volo, a Canadian illustrator from Kazakhstan, talk about her work which helps to shape and beautify outdoor spaces in Vancouver.

This past summer, IDEA instructor and established painter-illustrator Jeff Burgess mentored 4 IDEA students in his studio: on Mondays, Lilian Leung and Brendan Walsh, and on Thursdays Jeremy Browns and Tony Yu.

We are pleased to announce that IDEA students were hugely successful in this year's GDC National Scholarship Awards! Many congratulations go to Grad 2015 students Michelle Lim, Wes Browne, Lillian Leung and Jocelyn Wong.

The 3rd Year's January trip to New York was full of lows, meteorologically speaking that is: a "polar vortex" brought New York City's coldest temperatures in a century. The snow and biting wind didn't stop us getting warm and fuzzy about the amazing cultural experiences the city has to offer.

The new issue of Applied Arts magazine features no fewer than 18 IDEA student award winning pieces, two of which were selected as AACE (Applied Arts Creative Excellence) finalists.

Rosea Lake, grad 15, recently missed a few days of classes to travel to Belgium to appear in the Court of Antwerp. A right-wing political group had appropriated her work "Judgments" to promote an anti-Islamic agenda.

An evening of food, art and a celebration of Vancouver landscapes.

Alex Tench interns as a digital designer at Idea Rebel.

Congratulations to our students: Alexis Young (design), Madison Tuff-Overes (illustration), Laurisha Bardal (design), Camille Segur (design), Lia McMillan (design), Cheryl Swan (illustration) and Allison Chambers (design).

IDEA students virtually cleaned up in the Illustration category of CAPIC's RODEO5!

Many congratulations to Camille Segur (grad 13) and Alex Harvey-Wickens (grad 14) for winning Brand Identity and Print category Salazar awards last night!

Third year student Lia McMillan's project – an environmentally sensitive package for chocolates – was recently featured on Lovely Package. Lovely Package curates the very best packaging design.

First year design student Rosea Lake has received a lot of attention for her "Judgements" work after it went viral.

We're very pleased to announce that IDEA students Camille Segur and Alex Tench won both of the GDC Jim Rimmer Community Scholarships for Design this year. The submitted work had to "apply design thinking to benefit a community and effectively communicate a message, affect action and promote change."