Vår Aunevik

I grew up in the northernmost town in the world — Longyearbyen, Svalbard — which sounds cool until you realize the creative community is.... tiny. So I went online to find people who also thought font choices matter. When I found ilovecreatives there was never a question of whether I wanted to take a course — just which one. I was mid-way through starting a skincare brand with my mom, and had been DIY-ing all my design work: packaging, dielines, social posts. But I hit a wall. I needed outside perspective. Preferably one that wasn’t from my mom.

I took the Graphic Design Course first. It completely unstuck me. Like, mentally. Creatively. Existentially. I started letting go of the "right way" and leaned hard into the weird side of my design brain. Then I took the Squarespace Design Course because I was already deep in it and figured, why stop now? It made sense — I’d just built a whole brand in the GDC, and now I needed somewhere to actually put it. The two courses were a match made in heaven.

I’ve always sat somewhere between creative and logical. For long I thought I'd have to pick either or, but combining coding in squarespace with design really proved me wrong and made me realize that I can embrace both sides.

My favorite thing about the course was the feedback! It was direct, specific, and actually helpful — not just “love this!” but stuff that made the work better.