Friendship grounds us through all phases in our lives. From childhood to adulthood, from visiting a new place to making that place our home. This month, Danish designer Julie Solvstrom teamed up with 9-year-old Joeca from Kalimantan, Indonesia to explore this very theme. Together, they created an illustration that encapsulates the energy that friendship gives us.
From a small Danish island to a big Canadian city
Julie’s childhood was spent in the Danish countryside. When she looks back on it, she admits she might be romanticising it a bit, but can only describe it as ‘idyllic’. “We spent all our time outside, running around the forest, biking down local trails, and getting lost. We’d only come home when dinner was ready.”
“It’s a very small town, but there were lots of young families, which meant plenty of friends, and we were a tight-knit bunch. It was a time before smartphones (I know, I know, definitely romanticising it!), but life felt present, and you had to get creative to entertain yourself.”
Julie didn’t stay in the Danish countryside, though. As soon as she graduated, she packed her bags and moved to Vancouver, Canada. Pretty big shift in scenery!
When explaining her motivation for moving, she says: “It was on a bit of a whim, to be honest, and I had only planned on staying for a year. I think I just wanted some adventure and to gain some work and life experience in a place I hadn’t been before. I really love the attitude toward work and play here. There is a lot of play!”
Growing into an artist
Nowadays, Julie is known for her earthy colour palette, nature themes, and use of bold typography. She recounts that this development of her style happened slowly over time.
“It started with a genuine love and curiosity for both illustration and typography, alongside a need to create for the sheer sake of creating. Type and lettering are fun because of how expressive they can be. You work with the same skeleton, but the flesh (slightly regretting this metaphor!) can look a million different ways and convey so many different feelings and energies.”
This has resulted in a unique art style that translates seamlessly between digital works and physical packaging. It’s no wonder that Julie’s portfolio includes such a wide range of projects.
But when having to choose one project that stands out, she is suddenly at a loss for words. “That’s like naming a favourite child!” Julie exclaims.
“I don’t know if I can name a single project, but I do love working with a creative team, so maybe it’s more about a favourite type of project. From time to time, design agencies reach out, and I get to collaborate on projects shaped by the thoughts and ideas of other creatives. It pushes my work in a way I simply can’t do on my own. It’s just a pleasure to get to co-create, and I find the results feel more meaningful and rich.”
At the same time, she also lets her creative juices flow in solo projects. For example, she sometimes gives herself a fictional brief to create the type of work she’d like to be commissioned for.
“I made some sardine packaging and a cookbook,” she explains. “Truthfully, I don’t do these very often anymore, though I wish I did. In a nice way, they did exactly what I intended them to do: they brought in more work. However, that work also ate up the time I previously had to explore self-initiated work. I love packaging. The physicality is so nice, especially when most of my work ends up living on a screen.”
Making art with Indonesian children
We’re honoured to say that this collab was the first time that Julie worked with children. And she excitedly adds that it will hopefully not be the last time either.
“There’s a purity and innocence to kids being creative that we don’t appreciate at the time, but that we spend our whole adult lives chasing,” she continues. “To make art before society teaches you that art can be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is so precious and painfully short-lived. I think there’s a bit of a heart-to-hand connection that gets a bit frayed as we grow older.”
Of course, we were super excited when she agreed to a Face This collab, and luckily the feeling was mutual. Julie says she was “super happy, of course! I’ve followed the project for a long time, and I’m very honoured to be able to get involved.”
Friendship as a paper windmill
For this illustration, Julie worked together with Joeca from the village of Pulau Sapi in Indonesia. Joeca was asked to make a drawing based on the theme of friendship.
“Friendship is oxygen,” exclaims Julie. “I simply couldn’t do without my friends. It’s having people in your corner. It’s the comfort and safety of the people who stick by you during the times when life knocks you so violently to the ground that you doubt if you can get back up. And it’s the people who celebrate your wins as if they were their own.”
Of course, friendship is important to anyone in the world, but it’s especially vital when moving countries. Julie emphatically explains that friendship is the thing that has kept her in Vancouver for the past 6 years.
She goes on: “I joined a lot of social clubs centred around activities that I enjoy. I joined a mountaineering club, a kayaking club, and went regularly to a climbing gym.
“But I think the success of building new friendships, especially as we get a little older, comes down to consistency. You have to keep showing up. I mean that in a very practical way: you have to physically keep showing up. You have to move through that sticky and uncomfortable phase of being new and friendless. Intimacy and relationship-building take time, but it’s always, always, always worth it.”
So, how does Joeca, her collab partner, view friendship? For her drawing Joeca depicted herself and her friend playing outside with a paper windmill. Interestingly, most of the drawing is taken up by the surroundings, rather than the two friends.
On this, Julie comments: “What I loved about Joeca’s take on the theme is how grounded it is in a child's reality. It’s that innocence I talked about earlier. She didn't draw abstract hearts, she drew a shared experience outside. It felt more about the energy of friendship than the concept of it.”
And of course, we can’t talk about Joeca’s drawing without mentioning the most important object in it: the paper windmill.
Julie speculates: “I think you can see it as a sweet symbol of friendship. A windmill won't spin by itself, it needs some sort of outside force. Joeca, and all the rest of us, need other people to truly set our worlds in motion.”
Centring the windmill in the final illustration
When it came to making the final illustration, it was clear that Julie had to put the paper windmill in the centre.
From then, it was a matter of adding that signature Julie Solvtrom touch. “I’m terrible at drawing people. I have successfully avoided it my entire career and have no plans to change that! So instead, I drew Joeca and her friend as two birds. There’s an innocence and presence to animals that you also find in children, so this felt pretty fitting. I drew some leaves to bring in nature and the outdoors, as that seemed important in Joeca’s drawing.”
This resulted in an ethereal illustration that almost makes you think of stained class in a cathedral. And we absolutely love it!
We loved seeing this collab have such a beautiful and creative outcome. So to close off, we of course wanted to know if Julie would be up for doing it again. Her short but sweet answer: “100%!”