visual identity

hello everyone! happy sunny Sunday and VegTO Vegetarian Food Festival weekend! yahoooo :) this weekend has been pretty awesome so far. went out with my class on friday for 90s night at the wreckroom which was totally fun! then on the way home, we stopped at sneaky dees for some food. i can't believe that i got sneaks dinner two days in one week. can't even handle it haha! saturday i spent, well... recovering. later that evening, my gal vanessa and her bf russell came over and we went and got some apps at kelseys. and i swear to you, selena gomez was sitting on the patio, no lies. russell did the whole "im taking a pic of you soph, but actually pointing the camera at selena's doppelganger" thing. it was sketchy and silly, and i felt like a massive creep, but it was hilarious. we blared "love you like a love song" on the way home and sang our lungs out.

woke up a bit too late today, waiting for the rogers guy to come and fix our internet/cable (getting a cheap-o student package whoo!) and then probably gonna go down to the harbourfront with my pal and fellow veggie allison for the vegetarian food festival. saw another caba's pic of the vegan dessert table yesterday and that's what convinced me that it is something i can't miss haha those desserts looked amazing!

anyways, the whole point of this post... a couple months ago, i signed up for the beta version of vizualise.me, a website that uses your linkedin info to create an infographic of your resume. cool, right? so i had totally forgotten about it until today when i received the email with the sign in code. so, here is my resume check it out! vizualize.me - Sophie's profile

the website is super easy to use, allowing you to choose from several layouts, then you can change the fonts, colours etc. and you can add jobs/education/whatever and also edit the description, but it pulls everything from your linkedin so if you're happy with what's up there then you don't really have all that much editing to do.

thought it is a cool concept, and a hell of a lot more fun than reading a boring ol' resume on a white piece of paper :) just wanted to share it with everyone! for those interested, the website is vizualise.me and the sign in code is vizme

everyone enjoy your sunday, i know i will! :)
smileeeeee

soph

listening to: you make me happy - sophie madeleine

the times they are a-changin'

well helloooo there! happy friday my lovelies. hope the first week of school has treated you all well. on my first day, i could tell that my mind/body was definitely still in summer mode and was rebelling against me trying to get ready in the morning. i stubbed my toe, dropped my mascara on the floor, dropped frozen fruit on the floor when i was trying to make my smoothie and then apparently, i've regressed to infancy and forgotten how to drink from a cup, because more of the smoothie ended up on my face than in my stomach. and that was all before 9am and my advanced flash class.... oh boy!! haha

the class was alright, if not slightly intimidating (computer programming and me do not mix, we have a sort of oil and water relationship) but i managed to make a flash animation of a bunch of shapes swirling around and a tiny kitten going across the screen while slowly turning pink. it was a small accomplishment, but something it was quite rewarding, being able to do something that you thought you'd never be able to do in a million years!

then i came home on break with my roommate, and tried to figure out our lame internet situation while eating lunch. we ended up going with this rogers student deal thing for 65, in which we get really shitty cable tv (ch 2 - 28) but super fast internet! sooo i'd say it's worth it because we can just watch all of our tv online. phewf problem solved. no more dropped connections.

then was my sociology of technology class. i think it is going to be really awesome. the prof seems like he really knows what he is talking about, and he is funny and interesting to listen to. reminds me of good old mr. morden, if any of my high school friends are reading this ;) love him.

after class, the plan was to go to sneaks for some late dinner nachos and then go upstairs to dance our butts off. best plan ever i'd say. for those of you who don't know me, i am a huge lover of sneaks. i know, i know, it's a dive bar, it's disgusting blah blah blah. make fun of me all you want, but i think all of its flaws are what gives it its charm, i love the food, and i love all the plaid wearing, pbr drinking, beardy hipster boys... so there. lol.

anyways, the girls were over pre-departure, having a few little celebratory dranks (for finishing our last first day whoo!) and i noticed that something had changed. we were still talking and laughing like we normally did. but it was what we were talking about that really struck a chord in me. no longer were we talking about new bands, shopping, shoes and gossip like we normally did. we were talking about weddings. weddings for god's sakes! we are 21 years old, wtf are we doing talking about weddings, mortgages, and the number of babies we want to have eventually?!?! as appalled as i was, i found myself drawn into the conversation like a moth drawn to the flame. i think that over the summer, something changed inside all of us. that realization that yes, we only have one more year of school left, and after that we are grown ups. adults. "mature." this stuff is actually going to be our reality pretty soon. i think it freaked me out so much because i think the end of school is really that time in which your childhood ends. you can't dick around anymore, stay up till all hours of the night, get up at 11 and roll into class in sweats. this is real life, and it's starting soon. (i want a big poofy wedding dress and 1 baby, most likely adopted haha) 

randy <3

i'm going to take a guess and say that most fourth years are feeling this way, and i'm sure my anxiety is going to rise as each month goes by and we get closer and closer to adulthood haha. just needed to vent about it! today is my first ad centre class, the sun is shining, and it's friday. what could possibly be bad about today? :)

tgif ladybugs! enjoy your sunny day
soph

holy lord liftin!

TOMORROW IS MY LAST FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL...... EVER!!!!!!!


let that sink in..... ok. 


what a better way to end the last day of summer than learning a new song on my ukulele and discovering new bands :) 


new song = tonight, you belong to me (a very popular uke song)
new bands = mirah [http://www.mirahmusic.com/]
                       sophie madeleine [http://sophiemadeleine.com/]


i went to google sophie madeleine and wrote sophie hebert baaaahaha


so everyone have a lovely sleep and wish me luck tomorrow on my last first day of school! 


xoxo
s

stress free summer

ever realize that although summer is our time off, our vacation, our time to reenergize, it is mostly spent being busier than we are during the year? time is divided into working (gotta pay that tuition) doing stuff at home like cleaning and all that, trying to have a social life, and then maybe if time permits and the weather gods are smiling that day, squeeze in a trip to the beach. i long for the lazy summer boredom of elementary school days. the summer seemed so much longer, even though it was half as long. you had no plans, and the biggest drama was that the dickie-dee truck went down your friend's street and not yours. 


that is the kind of summer i set out to have this year, and it is exactly what i needed. by the end of  the school year, i was burnt out. i needed to get away and recharge. i took a break from everything. no blogs, no advertising, no keeping up with everything as it was happening. i just stopped. and it was fantastic! i did work from may until july at the yacht club full time, but i was outside by the water all day so it was lovely. then i went home and got ready for a two week roadtrip around nova scotia with my best friend and talented photographer, jess deeks (jessicadeeks.com).


with the car packed up, boogie boards and photography equipment in tow, we hit the road to halifax at 3am on july 12th. we made it there in one day, a 17 hour drive but it was actually pretty easy. we stayed with her great aunt who coincidentally lives about a 2 min drive from my dad! what a small world. we had lunch with the gang from chester + co, where i interned last summer, shopped around and then hit the road again! we drove north east with lawrencetown being our first stop, and you know what that means: surfing! we continued up to cape breton, then back down through pugwash (heeheee) and down to the south shore, hitting yarmouth, lunenburg and all those lovely towns, all the while setting up and taking portraits of cool people we met along the way. back to halifax for a day or two to sleep in a real bed after 'roughing it' in a two person pop up tent haha and then back home to ottawa we went! 


side note: i had tried to set up a portfolio review with shawn king from extreme group (they have an office in hali) while i was there, but the timing just didn't work out... i was tres bummed out, but hey everything happens for a reason right?! 

our route!

now, if you guys have ever had the privilege of travelling with a photographer, you will know that you basically don't even need to bring a camera, as they will be doing most of that for you. i think i ended up taking maaaybe 100 photos, because jess always had her point and shoot out, so i just stole all of her pics! which are awesome. to see the portraits she did (and she wrote a bit about each person/place we were when we took them) check out her blog jessicadeeks.blogspot.com there is also a video she made of the trip which is sooo great and the background music is "don't stop" by foster the people. aka basically our soundtrack for the whole trip. foster the people on repeat. 

that is just a small sampling of the about 400 pictures i have from our trip. all photos copyright jessica deeks. check out her blog for more photos! 

it was an absolutely amazing trip! we had sort of a plan/route we were going to take, but we had all the time in the world and didn't care if we made changes to it. such a free feeling to just be able to get up and go wherever and whenever you wanted. nova scotia is so beautiful, i'm lucky to have been able to go there and spend a lot of time there in my life so far! check it out if you have the chance :) next stop: west coast!!! 

we got home the last week of july, and thats when the chilling started. the adventure was over and now it was time to relax! i spent all of august reading, sleeping in till 11, hanging out with my cat tiger, growing tomatoes, spying on deer in my backyard, watching countless episodes of how i met your mother, and perfecting my recipe for homemade iced tea. it was the best.

i got back to toronto two days ago feeling very happy to be here! i'm stoked, creativity re-amped, ready to go. i still get super scared when i think omg i'm in 4th year and in four months i will be an intern, but it's more a excited scared than a 'watching scary movie home alone at midnight' kind of scared haha portfolio show on november 14th btw so that's the countdown date waaaaah!!!

now i'm sitting here, on labour day, with the last first day of school EVER looming in front of me, two days away. it is a weird feeling, since basically all i've ever done is be in school. definitely not ready to be a grownup and have a 'real job'. stress. i'm just going to take this year one day at a time and see what happens, because i can't get stressed over things i have no control over! zennnnn. breathe in, breathe out. ok, good to go. bring it on fourth year! 

now i'm looking forward to seeing all my classmates who i've missed terribly over the summer, going back to all my toronto 'spots', and .... sweater weather whooo! cozy and cuddly. hope everyone enjoys the long weekend (i have tuesdays off, so it's an extra long weekend for me!) and kicks butt on the first day back at school! 

stay stress free peeps :)

soph

sunscreen and surf wax

it has been a whiiiiiile since my last post wow! i went home last week for madison's baby shower and i was able to be home for a week so it was really nice, i actually had time to see everyone unlike easter weekend. the shower was so fun, she got so much cute stuff!

madison wearing sunglasses my mum bought her :P

that week i also hung out with my girls, had a bonfire, snuggled my kitteh and sat outside on our lawn in the woods and worked on my portfolioooo! it is all done, printed and ready to go for portfolio night on thursday coming up. sneak peak: sophiehebert.ca ;) also, i was featured on their ready to shine section, cause i filled out some questions when i bought my ticket... check it out! http://portfolionight.com/9/archives/5303

hmm what else... got back on monday, worked tuesday and then wednesday i spent the day with my friend from school victoria (@VictoriaSturges) in kensington market. such a nice day, thought it was going to rain but it ended up being super sunny. friday i went for a nice walk by the lake. i even had to put sunscreen on it was SO sunny and hot. i loooove the smell of sunscreen :)  that night, i slept over at my sista-from-anotha-mista jenn's (@jennkeenaner) she had never seen harry potter 7 ... i know right? lol so we watched that and ate caramel rice cakes yummmm! preparing for our saturday adventures. 

we woke up and had some brekkie and hopped on the bus to boardsports. for those of you who don't know, i love surfing. i went in halifax last summer, and i can't get enough of it. jenn is the same way. so boardsports outings for us are both fun and depressing. i ended up with two bars of mr zogs sex wax (cool-cold) and a billabong wax comb complete with a trusty bottle opener, and jenn ended up with the wax and a rashguard to match her catch surf beater board she is getting for her birthday! this thing is super rad and i am so stoked to borrow it haha at 46' with a single (removable) fin, you can skim it, bodyboard it and once you get really good, you can even stand on it and use it as a little surfboard. sooo fun! affectionately nicknamed 'frankensurf' 

 

came home, made a sweet dinner and now im just chilling. start work full time on monday so i must achieve maximum relaxation this weekend before i start the getting up early-going to bed early routine. gaaaaah. at least i get weekends off yay! so anyways, i just needed to ramble for a bit and now im done. 

portfolio night on thursday, i will definitely be doing a post about that after its done, probably on the weekend. hopefully i will meet tons of people, most of who i will already be following on twitter haha, and get some feedback about my book! wish me luck :)

hope everyone is enjoying the weather! 

peace

soph

ps my cat is cwaaaazy

listening: bird flu - M.I.A

itube, youtube!

sooo a while ago i started a youtube channel with the hopes of video blogging my final year of college and the intense-ness of job searching and all those lovely things that come with starting out in the "real world". my page was looking pretty empty without any vids, so today i just decided to do a quick lil thing introducing myself and the purpose of my channel. anyways, it is pretty thrown together, unrehearsed etc and i sound like a 10 year old boy, but it gets the message across :P anyways, check it out and subscribe to my channel yo!

happy summerrrrrrr!!!!

ps claritin sky writing (live claritin clear today) downtown = super cool! fearless client what whaaaat! anyone know which agency did that?

check it out

http://www.youtube.com/user/sophieh1231

listening: tremendous dynamite - eels

wanderlust

ever since i was a kid, i made plans. to do lists, weekly schedule plans, and as i approached the tender age of 12, a plan for my future university, life in the big city of toronto and a glamourous career as a fashion designer. we all know how that one turned out haha. needless to say, i absolutely love where i ended up, and i think it was a blessing in disguise because advertising is definitely for me! 

i think that all this planning is finally catching up to me. while i still am a huge sucker for lists and dreaming about what award winning ad agency i'll work for after graduation, i find that lately i have this sort of 'cabin fever' thing going on. i do love toronto a whole heck of a lot, but i feel this need to move. yesterday, i googled ad agencies in hawaii. looked into getting a working visa for the united states. craiglisted apartments in santa monica, and their approximate walking distance from cp+b's santa monica (LA) office. what's going on?! california dreamin' baby. i don't even want to live in the states, i mean, i love canada, but i am drawn to the beach, the warmth and the sun. every time i see a california tourism commercial (betty white is so cute in them!) i just feel like i belong there. nevermind the discussions i had with my lovely cousin and her husband, who live in san jose, when they came down for christmas. it just seems like the place for me. maybe i don't need to move there, but i definitely need to travel. it's movies like eat pray love and into the wild that make me just want to drop it all and get away from here. i just want to forget about everything and go to places i've only seen on tv, and the occasional time when i google street view them lol, and experience new culture and see how different people live. 

maybe it's that college "finding yourself" phase i'm going through, but i seem to be much less concerned with my future and figuring it all out before it happens, and just giving it the time to let it happen. don't get me wrong, i am stoked to work really hard on my book and get a wicked job, but maybe i just don't have to stress about it so much anymore, and that whatever is meant to happen will happen. maybe i won't start working the minute i graduate, which has been drilled into our heads since high school. i feel like we were put on this timeline in high school, and if you deviated from it, you were frowned upon. i think it's taken me this long in a creative learning environment to realize that maybe that timeline isn't right for everyone, and that it is okay to do your own thing. try as many things as you can. if it doesn't work out, you learn from that experience and move on. who knows? maybe i'll take a year off after school to travel, get that cabin fever out of me, and come back to toronto to work. maybe i'll get a job right away. maybe i'll move to south africa and shark cage dive and catch sweet waves in between my days as a copywriter. i've come to realize that that is the beauty in life, you never really know what is going to happen, and as hard as you try to plan for it, you just gotta go with what it throws at you. hopefully it will be something exciting :) 

sorry for that huge rant, i think it is all this free time on my hands that has given me tons of time to think about things, and i just needed to get that out! is this wanderlust cabin fever thing just something i'm going through, or do a lot of students near the end of their programs get that too?? is it a creative person thing? does everyone have this urge to explore the world? i mean, there is only so much you can see through other people's travel photos ;) 

soph

listening: you and i - ingrid michaelson