My name is Dane. I study design. I am always studying how design works in the world, and working to make the world a better place.
I believe the highest standard of any work is that you may make the world better. I see how design has that level of influence. And I see how the study of design encourages anyone to look at anything from an ethical point of view.
I think of design as problem-solving. And I practice a collaborative design process that is both data- and story-driven. I am personally invested in every project that I take on and give continuous attention to the design details as each project evolves.
For people.
I want people to have good experiences, less confusion and more clarity. The experiences we get from big brands today are designed to be bold and clear and good, however, at times, at great expense. I want to help people with small businesses realize this design standard because the end result of that collaboration is more good experiences for more people.
For culture.
I want to design for companies with civic-minded projects that might make a lot of lives meaningfully better. I want to believe that a lot of those kinds of companies are out there. And I want to help those companies visually communicate better.
For designers.
I want designers to be less eager to work on commercial technology, and more eager to take on the many challenges where design is part of a solution. I think there is value in leading by example so I look for wild projects to work on when I can. I want to show designers that these are the kinds of projects we can work on, and it can be just as satisfying as releasing apps that a lot people use because a lot of people may benefit either way.
For storytellers.
I want to help share stories about nature. I want to help realize the visions of creative directors with wild stories to tell. I want to create creatures for animated experiences and illustrate wild animals in picture books and so on.
For nature.
I want to continue to grow as a graphic artist as well as a visual storyteller. I want to continue to look to art, technology and the natural world to inspire design. And I want to continue to develop a collection of works at Animat Habitat—a not-for-profit studio that I founded in 2015, where I create art to inspire conservation of the wild places and the animals that live in them.
The study of design makes clear how we are responsible for the work we contribute to the world. We should strive to leave a better world than when we arrived—to improve things. We not only can change the world, now, we must. So let's design for good.
— Dane Aleksander, graphic artist in Halifax—Kjipuktuk—the great harbour, 2015
2013-2018 Member of Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM SIGGRAPH)
