The Art of Touch: Crafting Organic Connections on the Island
Workday: 29/05/2025
Thursday was a much-needed pause a day off in name, but truly a celebration of the labour, care, and traditional craft that went into one of my most tactile and human-centred design tasks. It became a beautiful balance between rest and reconnection, not just with nature but with the work I had spent weeks carefully drawing by hand.
Alongside Neddie we took a day trip to the island of Sainte-Marguerite, where I had completed a full series of chalkboard renovations for the kiosk. Seeing all of them positioned around the kiosk — warm, worn-in and beautifully functional — was an incredibly proud moment that reminded me why handmade, analogue work still holds such power.
Stepping off the boat and seeing my chalk illustrations in their final setting, so seamlessly woven into the island atmosphere, filled me with a quiet joy. Children traced the drawings with their fingertips, couples lingered and smiled at the flourishes of flowers and hand-lettered titles it was one of the most gratifying parts of the whole experience. The boards didn’t feel like signage, they felt like part of the place: embedded in its textures, light, and stories. Knowing how much agility, time management and thought went into them, it was heartening to see the effort resonate so warmly with the public.
Neddie, with her brilliant eye for visual storytelling, captured these interactions beautifully, collecting raw footage of the chalkboards living and breathing with people’s presence. It was touching to hear that Sylvie, the kiosk owner, was so enthusiastic about sharing the materials with local media and beyond, a gesture that may open up new possibilities for future collaborations. This project reminded me that even in an age of digital saturation, the human hand and heart behind a piece of work can still speak the loudest.