Vacations are nice. I just got back from a few days with the fam in B.C. and figured I’d memorialize my short summer break with a bit of unnecessary design.
From Copenhagen, with Love
I’ve been living in Copenhagen for the last 4 months, working at a studio called Designbolaget. It is a charming and beguiling city, full of design treasures. I only have two weeks left here before I return to our home and native land; it will be sad to go. Will any place ever be as beautiful? Here are a couple photos I shot on my sojourn here:
Laura, boat, wind turbines
Amelienborg Palace
Posted in Uncategorized
My Best Idea Ever
Still working on the courage to try this. If you’re willing to let me try it on you, let me know.
Posted in Uncategorized
The Design Exchange likes me
I was in Toronto this week for the 2009 DX Awards, where I won Gold in the Visual Communications – Content Development & Editorial category for Agora Borealis: Engaging in Sustainable Architecture. I was tickled pink. Pinkish gold maybe.
This was my second trip to the DX Awards—in 2007 I won an honourable mention for the White Moose Catalogue.
The Design Exchange says: The Design Exchange Awards promote Canadian design excellence and recognize the critical role of design in all types of organizations including commercial entities (large and small businesses), not-for-profit organizations, and the public sector. The Awards celebrate the success stories achieved through close partnerships between clients and designers. The DXAs are Canada’s only award program to judge design by results, balancing function, aesthetics, and economic success.
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Posted in Awards
Banff Session
This is a project Tyler Vreeling from Fat Crow Design, Laura Harding and I are currently collaborating on for the Alberta Association of Architects. The Banff Session is a biannual architectural conference held in Banff, Alberta, Canada. This year’s theme, chosen by the association, is “Scale”. Our interpretation of the theme is based on the shifts in scale possible within the isometric grid. Each piece in the package will represent a shift in scale by zooming in or out on the elements that we’ve created within this isometric world. The poster is below. A website, postcards, banners, programs and signage are in the works.
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Posted in Identity, Interactive, Print
Couture for Cambodia
This was a bro bono project my wife Laura and I worked on for a non-profit called Same Same But Different. The event was a fashion show featuring some of Canada’s hottest designers and models. All the proceeds went towards an orphanage building project in Cambodia benefiting victims of child trafficking, extreme poverty, abandonment, and decades of warfare.
I art directed the project and Laura Harding did all the illustration. We chose a really bright, warm and energetic colour scheme that made reference to the traditional colours of Cambodia and served to generate the excitement we were hoping to create for the event through posters, invites, tickets, banners and programs. It seems to have worked—the house was packed and the event raised $17,000.
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Posted in Print
First Nations Brochure/Poster
I was asked to write and design a brochure to promote Manasc Isaac’s work for First Nations communities across Canada and attract new building projects. The brochure was intended to reconnect the firm with past clients and generate business. The concept uses the traditional First Nations medicine wheel and four elements as a way to explain Manasc Isaac’s sustainable building practices and show the harmony between the two philosophies.
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Posted in Print
Agora Borealis
One of the major projects I’ve worked on at Manasc Isaac is the redesign of Vivian Manasc’s book Agora Borealis: Engaging in Sustainable Architecture. The concept behind the book’s design comes from the idea of conversation and dialogue as a means to achieve more sustainable buildings. The book itself is a type of conversation; multiple authors tell the story and quotes from writers, architects and project stakeholders are smattered throughout the text. A simple speech bubble, repeated and varied endlessly throughout the book communicates this concept and serves as the building block for illustrations, the root of patterns, the carrier of pull-quotes and the structure for layouts. I did all the design and illustration for the book, and also contributed some of the photography.
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Posted in Print
Manasc Isaac Signage
I developed an internal signage package for Manasc Isaac to help visitors navigate the building and to incorporate a new branding strategy into the space. The package included custom room signs, several wayfinding directories, custom symbols and large-format posters.
The meeting rooms are all named after Manasc Isaac projects. I used images of each building to create an icon which I had mounted under a transparent layer of acrylic, with raised laser-cut letters mounted on the surface. The wayfinding signage was produced internally using digital prints on an acrylic backing. Wilson Loh designed an ingenious magnet system for attaching the signs to the walls that allows them to be taken down quickly and painlessly.
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Posted in Environmental
Logos!
I’ve worked on some pretty satisfying identity projects over the years. Here’s a few of my favourites:
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Posted in Identity
The West Xprssd
In the fall of 2008, Fat Crow Design curated a design feature booth at the Calgary and Vancouver Home Shows. The booth exhibited the work of ten Western Canadian designers working in various areas of design such as furniture, fashion and architecture. I was asked to create an identity and environmental graphics for the booth, print material and a webpage.
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Posted in Environmental, Identity, Interactive, Print
White Moose Catalogue
36 page product catalogue produced for Fat Crow Design’s inaugural furniture line, White Moose. Using the identity I had developed previously, I did all of the photography, design and much of the copy writing. All in less than two weeks (two blurry, sleepless, zombie-eyed weeks). Tyler Vreeling and I collaborated on the creative direction and copy writing.
This project won a DX Award in 2007
I was involved in the design of several of the pieces in the line including a set of magnetic coasters and a water-jet cut room divider.
I also designed the online catalogue at www.whitemoosebrand.ca
Programming by Dave Olsen.
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Posted in Awards, Identity, Interactive, Print
