designing for the family reunion

This summer, next month actually, I will heading to Norway for a family reunion. I am so excited to see family members I haven’t seen in a couple years and also some new ones I have never met. We are also going to be in Bergen which I have never been to so I am way excited for that too. I have really only been to Oslo and where ever my cousins’ cabin is up in the mountains.

The Kaardal-Olson family reunion tradition changes countries every 4 years from Norway to USA to Canada. The short version of a long story of how the family got separated is this: My great grandparents were missionaries from Norway in Africa. When they had children they were sent to live with other family members. My grandpa was sent to live in Canada, while his sister Alice lived with relatives in Norway (They didn’t even meet until he was 21 and she was 16!!). My grandpa ventured into the US along the way making us the American ambassadors.

At these reunions, because there are way too many of us, we wear pins that say which branch of the family we belong to. Being the graphic designer in the family, I was conveniently called in to work on the project. It needed Norwegian and American flags, to say which branch of the family we were from and at the last minute a map of Africa needed to be included. I could kick myself for not including the year, but I can’t do much about

it now as the pins have been made already. Here is the design I came up with, I was so proud of those flags… you have no idea.