Now a graduate of the Bachelor of Design program at the University of Alberta, Cameron joined the team for two months, starting in June 2004. We caught up with him online after having spent a summer learning from us - and impressing us with his wild imagination and awesome design skills - some of which can be viewed on his site.

Veer: You’re something of a trailblazer around here. How does it feel to be the first student hired at Veer?

Cameron: Pretty great! I was getting a little restless in the academic environment, so it was good to have some early exposure to the professional world. It was kind of lucky for me that the opportunity came along.

Veer: It’s nice, isn’t it, to be able to shift gears from school, to apply what you know?

Cameron: Four years at design school is a lot of training, but even before you start working in the field, you realize there will be quite a few aspects of design that you haven’t been adequately exposed to in school. My experience at Veer was a head-start on what I like to call my post-academic design education.

Veer: What did you like most about your time at Veer?

Cameron: There’s no hierarchy there. Rather than being stuck in some corner designing buttons, I was welcomed as a peer and the work I was given let me exercise what I know and to learn more about what I didn’t... thanks to plenty of feedback I received on my work.

No button-designing jobs, indeed. Not at Veer. Instead, we challenged Cameron to develop a new interface for our image gallery. The results speak for themselves - he engineered from scratch a floating filmstrip that pulls visitors effortlessly through a selection of Veer’s broad image collection. We liked the concept so much that we had him apply it to our Summer Fun gallery, too. He also worked on the print side, contributing to Veer’s August 2004 catalog.

Like all people who earn a living by creating stuff out of thin air, we were curious to know more about where Cameron gets his inspiration. He’s a long-time admirer of designer Geoff McFetridge, whose portfolio spans a range of fields, from film posters, to silkscreens, to textiles. And in Cameron’s work there’s a similar appetite for drawing from and fusing sources without limits. When he’s not sketching out an idea in Photoshop or building with Flash, he’s at work with his band, laying down tracks and mixing stuff up... just don’t try to pigeonhole his musical tastes or styles.

Cameron: It’s somewhat experimental indie-rock... and it would be more experimental if we had longer attention spans!

Veer: For you, how do you go about fusing music and art?

Cameron: I basically approach visual creation and musical creation with the same mindset. A lot of the time my creative style is probably too analytical for either. I have a bit of a history in maths and sciences, which I try to forget about.

Veer: Yet technology is a big part of what you do, too...

Cameron: The more technology there is, the more technical knowledge you have to have to compete with your peers in a given media. For Flash stuff, I’m always boggled by yugop.com.

Cameron’s time at Veer reminded us that everyone benefits from a summer internship. “He’s been able to add to his portfolio and he’s gained some solid experience,” says Sheldon Popiel. “And for us, Cameron’s done more than just add to the team spirit at Veer, the proof is in his work that’s now in our print and online material.”