Vancouver is an amazing city, chock full of creative talent. WE ARE VANCVR is a simple, elegant way to showcase all that talent in one place. Every Tuesday we profile one individual from the VANCVR community.VANCVR.com is a Domain7 Labs project.

Mélanie Kimmett‘s illustrations are BIG in Vancouver. Really, really big. Chances are you’ve seen them splashed across the hulls of BC Ferries—at a whopping 500 feet long, they’re hard to miss. As one of the 2010 Olympic designers, her work had global reach, but the Toronto-native is now pretty happily rooted in Vancouver.

After her 3.5 years of making the Olympics look pretty, she’s branched out as an independent art director, illustrator and designer. When she’s not building brands for clients, she’s illustrating a (seriously adorable) line of greeting cards and challenging her own creativity at each turn. We were dually enamoured and inspired by her poster-a-day project which she kept up for a remarkable 218 days! Read on to find out why she loves being a creative in Vancouver.

What do you do?

I’m so happy my “everyday” consists of creative, conceptual thinking and exploration. I couldn’t imagine being anything else than a designer + illustrator. I’m doing exactly what I was meant to do and that feels pretty darn good. I’m lucky to have had such an exciting career these last 10+ years and over that time have worked with some really amazing companies and organizations. I have since gone out on my own, freelancing for a good group of clients and I also started illustrating my own card line. I’m really my happiest when illustrating my characters. Over the next year I hope to focus on expanding the card line and finally finish the children’s book I’ve already started writing and illustrating.

My husband Kevin Kimmett and I moved to Vancouver in 2006 (from Toronto) when I was offered a role with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic design team. It’s true, we initially moved out here for the job, but we’ve since decided to stay for the city’s inspired eclectic culture, our love for the arts community, great friends and the ever-yummy food scene (we’re total foodies). And without question, being able to live by the Pacific and stare up at those mountains everyday only charms us more. I’m definitely an urbanite but it turns out my dreams live out in the wilderness – Vancouver really is that perfect blend of both. Between all of the wildlife and people-watching, there’s no end to all of the “character-spotting”.

Collaboration can be a very enriching, enlightening experience and I will always welcome the opportunity to try something new and/or come together to support and celebrate our  creative community! I’m continually looking for new events to follow or promote via social media. It’s important to me that we’re all talking about the community we’re a part of.

Hey, connect with me anytime here. My work can be found here, support/help promote my card line here, or you can also follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.