Danielle Hitchcock

2022 Season Graphic Artist

Lighthouse Festival is delighted to shine the spotlight on Danielle Hitchcock, the artist who created our beautiful and engaging show graphics for the 2022 season. Danielle is a multidisciplinary graphic designer in Hamilton. She has a vast variety of experience in branding, signage, wayfinding, editorial design, invitation and stationery design, book design, visual identity, web design and copywriting. Danielle holds a Bachelor of Design from York University and Sheridan College. She is the Principal and Creative Director of Twin Design + Art Direction.

Photo Credit: Olima Studio

When Artistic Director Derek Ritschel approached her about creating the show graphics it was a dream project for Danielle. “It’s not often a client encourages you to come at a project with what you believe it should be and gives you complete artistic freedom to create”. From the beginning Derek encouraged Danielle to make what she wanted, not what she thought he wanted to see.

Given limitless options, Danielle chose to create 2D drawings focused on pulling out elements from the individual shows, where they take place, what they are related to or imagery that can be found within them. To fill in those 2D drawings, she found images that spoke to the subject of the plays and used them to create texture, patterns and impact throughout each poster. Using the same typeface, as well as the same graphic device at the bottom, allowed the posters to live together as a cohesive whole, while also being able to stand alone. 

“It was a joy working on these posters and I am incredible proud of how they came together” Danielle always jumps at the chance to work with theatres. Before she was a designer, Danielle was a dancer and is a proud graduate of Cawthra Park Secondary School where was a dance major. She performed onstage for 20 years and in many ways considers herself a performer first. The stage is where her heart lives and when the pandemic ends, she vows to return to tap and modern dance classes, perhaps returning to the stage one day.

As an artist, Danielle is interested in the passage of time and how we heal – or don’t – as it passes. This can be seen in her portrait series and it’s accompanying blog: Me, Myself and Lymphoma which chronicles her 2021 journey with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a blood cancer.

Danielle is committed to creating a world where equity, diversity and inclusion are champions. This includes anti-racism work, which she is committed to not only as a business, but as a mother and a human being. To do this, Danielle is committed to the life-long learning (and unlearning) of racism and how her implicit biases uphold this system. She learns through listening to BI&PoC voices, diversifying her bookshelves, investing in courses and reading books by anti-racism activists.

As a small business owner, Danielle donates to local organizations, as well as those abroad, that benefit BI&PoC communities and are actively engaged in dismantling systemic racism. 

When she’s not creating beautiful work for her clients, Danielle can be found parenting her twins with her husband and doing yoga/pilates/meditation (to stay calm while parenting said twins). Danielle hopes to resume her love of travel before the kids are 20. She’s been to 18 countries across 3.5 continents and would love to add to that tally.

To keep up with Danielle’s artwork you can follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/twin.dsgn/ or visit her website www.twindsgn.com