Graphex 2010 Winners Site

Design Requirements

Resource reusability has been basic to Cascades since it was founded in 1957. The SD report—which is distributed internally to shareholders, business partners and people in the environmental sector—should feature design that strongly reflects its published content. We were asked to graphically represent Cascades’ commitment to a smaller ecological footprint.

Design Solution

We emphasized three axes of sustainable development: environment, society and the economy. Each has a section with a distinct colour and page width, which makes the document easy to browse. The report is printed in two colours with vegetable-based inks, on experimental environmental paper produced by Cascades.

Sustainable development is part of the company’s DNA, so we had to design a communications tool with more environmentally friendly materials (vegetable inks, papers with post-consumer fibres, no varnish, etc.). It was important both to improve functionality and reduce waste. A good example is the paperboard cover that allowed the report to be distributed without extra wrapping.

Design Requirements

Resource reusability has been basic to Cascades since it was founded in 1957. The SD report—which is distributed internally to shareholders, business partners and people in the environmental sector—should feature design that strongly reflects its published content. We were asked to graphically represent Cascades commitment to a smaller ecological footprint.

Design Solution

In using various devices to summarize and organize information, we stressed the human factor: examples of everyday employee commitments conveyed their achievements in an easy-to-consult document that gave each section its own distinct personality.

Naturally, we used paper manufactured by Cascades, highlighting the diversity of a line made from recycled fibre. For example, we designed a corrugated board jacket so the document could be delivered without special packaging. In addition, vegetable-based inks were used for printing.

Design Requirements

The Society needed an annual report that could recognize core investors, stimulate others to contribute, report on programs and progress, and induce pride and ownership for its key stakeholders. Consistent with the challenged budgets of not-for-profits, costs were an issue—so we gathered a pro-bono team of designers, photographer, writer, printer and paper mills, inspiring everyone to be on board for this great cause.

Design Solution

How do you give a voice to an organization that is incredibly diverse and brimming with poignant tales of courage, change, and hope? Take their pictures, tell their stories, and package the works in a timeless book that gets noticed on coffee and boardroom tables everywhere.

Design Requirements

The objective of the GDC Alberta North 2009 Annual Report was to communicate the Chapter’s three-year plan, promote sustainability and highlight the year’s accomplishments.

Design Solution

Establishing and maintaining strong awareness, credibility and relevance of the GDC Alberta North Chapter requires a consistent and strategic approach to communications over the long term. This year’s annual report is year one of the Chapter’s three-year communication plan: the Board of Directors’ guide over 2010 to help us achieve our Chapter’s objectives, communicate our key messages and meet our checklist of tactical recommendations for each of the target audiences identified as important to achieving the Chapter’s overall vision. The entire year’s efforts have been focused on implementing this plan. Much of what we wanted to accomplish this year is underway. Tactics that remain will be carried over into the next year, ensuring our objectives, are achieved over the three-year period.

This year’s annual report is an overview of those accomplishments.

Design Requirements

This series presents, in glorious detail, the lives of artists and designers from around the world. Small and intimate, each book contains special treasures. Each book in The Suitcase Series is a precious souvenir of a creative journey shared between the artist and you, the reader.

Design Solution

The book is sketchbook-like in size and format. In this edition we have included a glassine envelope of postcards with which you can create a Camilla-inspired collage. You’ll also find a booklet of the adventures of Morran, the little Swedish dog with a big imagination.

Design Requirements

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec wanted to offer the general public a guide to classifying personal documents. The graphic requirements were in line with the project itself: order, disorder, papers, convenience and neat tips.

Design Solution

The solution was to create a practical little booklet, richly illustrated with photos of families taking stock—remembering to include diplomas, driver’s licenses, and other bits of paper we want to make sure not to throw out!

Design Requirements

Foodie, actor and writer Christian Bégin decided to celebrate his love of food, drink, travel and good company by putting together a cookbook. The book had to be part recipe book, part story and part travelogue, including maps and real-life encounters. The design also had to reflect the writer’s personality: unpretentious, friendly, full of life.

Design Solution

The graphic solution for the book can be summed up as follows: “Because he’s not a chef. He’s just someone who loves eating and drinking, chatting, cooking, having people over, philosophizing. He’s just a passionate guy who takes off in search of new dishes. Who samples, savours and shares.” A graphic discovery of life and food. A book that reads like a story between recipes. A book readers can devour on every level.

Design Requirements

Les Allusifs is a small firm that publishes challenging works of fiction by internationally renowned authors throughout Europe and North America. It uses a strong art orientation to distinguish its books from more commercial publishers

They wanted covers for their new collection of detective novels, “3/4 Polar” (literally “3/4 Detective Novels”) that clearly stood apart from their other publications.

Design Solution

Our design typographically renders “3/4 Polar” to suggest the balance of psychological, historical and sociological themes in each novel. All covers in this collection employ a similar layout: a cream-white background, reserved for the title, occupies three-quarters of the cover area while the remainder is black.

The typeface is Braggadacio, an Art Deco style that alludes to the dark years before World War Two. The title is printed in black on top of a ringed medallion (a characteristic feature of the era, and of Les Allusifs, the publisher). The matte cream-white background—with splotches, spatters or streams of high-gloss red ink—looks as if it’s covered by fresh blood to intensify the book’s dramatic content. The blood spatter composition differs for each book while the overall look unifies the ensemble. Each book has a series number printed oversize beneath the title and on the back. The “3/4 Polar” symbol appears in black on the front and in reverse on the lower pane of the back. The basic typography, paper colour and binding give these covers a “French retro” edge that immediately separates them from competing store titles.

This year’s annual report is an overview of those accomplishments.

Design Requirements

SAM Communication is a TV, radio and web media production house. What we needed was a static way to represent the dynamics of sound and motion.

Design Solution

We created typography based on three-dimensional graphs of vibrations (“sound in motion”).

Design Requirements

When Lilith Fair returns in 2010, it is going to be much bigger than it was when it first ran from 1997–1999. Its look needed to be updated to reflect the energy of the international music festival. It needed to be strong and yet reflect community-connectedness. Above all, music is its backbone.

Design Solution

The Lilith Fair brand resembles both sound waves and a musical instrument. Its look is international, yet connected. Modern, strong and inclusive. The three brand colours are not only energetic, but practical—they will demarcate the festival’s three stages.

Design Requirements

Stationery created for the Arte Musica Foundation, whose mission is to support, promote and present music from all periods and all styles, along with educational courses. The client discerned many ties between music and visual art in that both try to convey, via limited external senses, the unfathomable internal emotions inherent in an artist’s work

Design Solution

The design presents a mainly typographic dialogue between the two art forms. After creating the logo, we cropped it, exploded it, and so on, to produce graphic and visual interest. We changed the position of elements on different pieces of stationery for a variety of envelopes, business cards and letterheads.

Design Requirements

Our objective: underscore the achievements and reputation of this respected institution, while making it modern and appealing to new generations of students. Focus on the teaching staff’s quality and credentials, at the same time making them appear warm and approachable. The graphic signature had to link the conservatory’s nine schools, each with their own distinct qualities.

Design Solution

An invitation to “play” a graphic signature bringing together the Conservatoire’s nine geographically and pedagogically distinct schools located throughout Québec. A photographic platform reflecting the passion and captivating power of regular, diligent practice.

Design Requirements

The goal was to expand a concept from previous campaigns, focusing on the same themes: emotion, faces and sensations.

Design Solution

As the logical sequel to last season, the visuals continue to evoke the core emotions underlying the show. The face, which is the mirror of human emotions, opens its eyes at last. This is truly an invitation to SEE operatic discipline at its best and plunge into the heart of the process. The Opéra embodies dramatic sensibilities and overflowing emotion right down to the pores, right down to the makeup.

Design Requirements

The objective was to design an exhibition catalogue that would document and showcase the artist Laura Vickerson’s work. The catalogue design, layout and materials needed to enhance the exhibited artist’s work without overshadowing it, while still creating an extended piece of the exhibition.

Design Solution

Visceral beauty and delicate decoration are central strands in the exhibition Retrouver—which means to find again or rediscover—featuring over a decade of diverse sculptural art by Laura Vickerson. Textiles, tacticity, texture, and hand labor/sewing are the main “threads” pulled from Vickerson’s work to create a delicate hand-crafted book that feels like a natural extension of the exhibition for which it was designed. An intricate sewing pattern from the artist’s work is die-cut into the cover. The books were sewn one at a time on an old sewing machine and each book hand stuffed into a cheesecloth bag to be discovered and rediscovered. Celebrating Vickerson’s attention to labor and detail, the book complements her work without overshadowing it.

Design Requirements

The Simplicim™ implant dentistry system was developed by dental surgeon Dr. Mireille Faucher. Our mandate was to create a brochure that addressed the oral and maxillofacial expertise and professionalism at Dr. Faucher’s clinic.

Design Solution

Inspired by the Simplicim™ technique itself and making “simplicity” our theme, we positioned punch holes where the dot would be above the “i,” using them as part of the illustrations and to pinpoint important information.

Design Requirements

Interieurs magazine is a well-known Canadian publication dedicated to design and architecture. Our job was to redesign the entire grid of the magazine and to improve the cover presentation so it would address the magazine’s artistry and creative direction. We not only had to appeal to current subscribers, but also increase readership among art, design and architecture lovers.

Design Solution

The new cover is mainly blank. You open a flap to see typical content, such as the major visual as well as the magazine’s brand identity. Part of the idea relates TO the name “Interieurs,” or “Interiors.” The cover does not end after one flip, but invites you further inside the publication.

Design Requirements

The new flag and individual cover design for the arts and culture quarterly needed to be graphically bold and make a statement that reflected the original, and often alternative, views of the magazine’s content.

Design Solution

A sustained visual theme of organic, abstracted layering of typography, graphic elements, and photography helped convey the multifaceted and progressive editorial and visual content of the magazine.

Design Requirements

Create an engaging publication that is distributed 3 times per year. Cover images are reflective of the theme of each issue.

Design Solution

Colours and illustrations are carefully created to reflect innovation and creativity to depict the topic of each issue in an eye catching and appealing way to entice the reader.

Design Requirements

Culinary Papers produces fine cooking papers and food wraps for private label brands as well as for its own line of branded products. They needed a brand that reflected their high-end craftsmanship and innovative practices that stayed true to their honest, practical approach.

Design Solution

Culinary Papers produces fine cooking papers and food wraps for private label brands as well as for its own line of branded products. The brand rollout included many forms of communication, all of which spoke to the honest, high-quality methodology. The Culinary Papers identity is a clear graphic monogram that distills the entire organization’s processes to a simple notion: “We make paper.” As an integral part of their rebranding, the Culinary Papers website was designed to reflect their expanded offerings and designed to tell their new brand story.

Design Requirements

Qmunity is a leading provincial resource centre that offers community services and programs that celebrate, support and enhance the diverse cultures of queer communities. The services and programs they offer support healthy and active living, provide leadership, increase awareness, advocate where needed, and promote arts and culture.

Design Solution

Qmunity is where members of BC’s queer community can make themselves heard, so we designed its wordmark to include a speech bubble. This graphic element then made its way onto posters, buttons and online, where people could fill in the bubbles with what their community means to them.

Design Requirements

SDC du Village is an organization in downtown Montreal. The Aires Libres event aimed to promote Montreal’s well-known Gay Village while providing merchants with greater visibility. Aires Libres, which translates into “Free Spaces / Areas, ”also had an ecological component: cars were not allowed in the Village. Our job was to design the promotional tools (program, posters, website, etc.) and exterior visuals.

Design Solution

With a unique pedestrian-only space at our disposal, we developed a concept around the expression Beau temps pour étendre (“great time to hang out”), referring to a popular French Quebecois expression. The new icon we created, a clothespin, picked up the theme and we used this in addition to the logo that had been designed for the first edition of Aires Libres. We also kept the colours associated with the event.

Eco-friendliness led to a program that could double as a poster. Clotheslines were suspended throughout the site, giant clothespins welcomed visitors and stencilled clothespins transformed the streets underfoot. In effect, we moved the colourful dynamics of local life from the backstreets and side streets to the main streets.

Design Solution

The Kolachy Co. is a new take on an old European tradition.

Design Requirements

A taste and ideas mixer is a unique concept built around creative cuisine and is a site to bring together all the new trends in fine cooking and the culinary arts. Mixer reveals the trends, meets with the cooks and visits the venues of creative cuisine. Mixer stands at the crossroads of good ideas, epicurean tastes, innovative styles, info-entertainment and great cooking.

Design Solution

The graphic solution reflects the show’s positioning, with the mixer (X) serving as a forum of interaction and exchange. Creation in all its senses, through the growth of tastes, people and ideas. Colours, like flavours, in everyone’s hearts.

Design Requirements

A subscription campaign—especially after 10 years of steady collaboration—is an annual challenge. It becomes necessary to remain in keeping with tradition but also to surprise at the same time. We must make sure to be seen, to be recognized, and to get noticed, in a stronger and stronger way, year after year, in a cultural industry in which competition is fierce, and in which new audiences must be developed while building the loyalty of existing fans. And of course, the season’s main theme or emotional focus must come through in the graphic design.

Design Solution

After a dazzling season, the TNM returns with a season inspired by light. The TNM as a source of energy and spirit for major works of the national and international repertoires: that is the new 09/10 season! The acting, the pleasure, the stage, and the voices—all shine brightly under the roof of the Nouveau Monde.

Design Requirements

Like the show’s brand image, credits for Christiane Charette’s Cabine C on TV5 were inspired by the sound stage set with its two booths (one for the host and the other for the guest). Communication, construction, exchange.

Design Solution

he solution for this Credits animation has been thought around the show’s concept of two mini-studios—one for Christiane Charette (the speaker) and the other for her guest. They communicate by interconnected screen and speakers, which builds a fascinating interplay between the two. The concept is mirrored in the cubes and graphics code that have become emblematic of the show.

Céna Garçon

Design Requirements

The challenge was to create an enticing piece for a fundraising event that would encourage participation of the business and financial community, as well as demonstrate the theatre company’s creative vision and cultural involvement.  This challenge was even bigger in 2009 due to the recession.

Our objective was to convey the “French” nature of the show, give a sense of the event (tasting new cuisine and attending a theatre performance) and present a fresh and dynamic design to convince 2008 contributors to come back in 2009.

Design Solution

The team decided to go French at 100%.

All communications pieces presented codes from the French culture: colours, illustrations, tone and manner, even the two Québécois actors who played in the video (Normand Chouinard and Rémy Girard) used French accents to make it come to life. The pieces are simple and smart: the invitation can also be used as a coaster and aprons were created for the staff in order to re-create a typical Parisian atmosphere.

Design Requirements

To commemorate and celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Montreal Canadiens hockey club. To design the first series of animated stamps ever produced in Canada.

Design Solution

The domestic stamp features a close-up of Maurice “Rocket” Richard’s game-worn #9 hockey sweater, which is currently housed in the Montreal Canadiens Hall of Fame. The older style, with its wool fabric and intricate detailing, really speaks to the team’s long history, capturing the magnitude of this anniversary. The jersey is also a powerful, unifying symbol in French-Canadian culture. “It’s sometimes called La Sainte Flanelle (the “Holy Shirt”).”

Using an action-oriented printing process called Motionstamp™ technology, the three stamps on the souvenir sheet feature replays of the historic 500th goals of Maurice Richard, Jean Béliveau, and Guy Lafleur, while playing for the Canadiens. The stamps are based on digital clips provided by the Montreal Canadiens. The players featured represent the golden age of the club (the 1950s through the 1970s): Richard in the ’50s, Béliveau in the ’60s, and Lafleur in the ’70s.

Design Requirements

Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) is one of Canada’s largest outdoor retailers, helping people enjoy the benefits of self-propelled wilderness-oriented recreation. MEC required an overall design direction and logo/graphics package for their line of bicycles, a completely new product line developed and produced by MEC.

The MEC-brand bikes needed to look unique, and be easily differentiated from lower quality entry-level and mid-level bicycles carried by competitors such as Canadian Tire, Costco, and Wal-Mart. The look and feel should not only convey MEC’s brand qualities of outstanding value and quality, but also a sense of accessibility as these bikes are primarily aimed at the average bike buyer and rider. The graphics should get noticed and have a distinct appeal while complementing the existing MEC logo/brand.

Design Solution

We proposed two design styles to differentiate the two main types of bikes—urban and road/mountain—and appeal to their respective target markets.

For the urban models, we suggested a playful, illustrative West Coast style. The hand-drawn graphics convey an easy-going, non-technical approach to riding which fits well for the target market of more casual riders who primarily use the bikes to get around town. Presenting the bikes as fun, accessible, and cool was a priority, and this creative approach gives the bikes a hip look without detracting from MEC’s focus on product function and performance. Tone on tone colour palettes add interest while keeping with MEC’s traditional product look.

For the mountain and road bike models, we recommended a bolder, more geometric approach. The strong lines and solid, contrasting colour blocks of these designs fit well with MEC’s other product offerings. This look has a slightly more technical edge, with graphics sizing and placement accentuating the design and contours of the different bikes frames in this category. Higher-end performance models boast multiple colours and additional racing-style details.

Design Requirements

Each year, Canada Post showcases in its Art Canada stamp series work of Canadian artists. In this set of three stamps the portraits of photographer Yousuf Karsh are commemorated, while also marking the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Following are the design requirements:

1. To present the artist’s work that is most representative.
2. To design a specific number of philatelic items:
   • Booklets of 8 stamps for international and US use
   • 16-stamp pane for domestic use
   • Souvenir sheet with three stamps
   • First-day cover envelope
   • Cancellation seal
   • Pre-paid postcards, one for each of the three stamps and souvenir sheet
   • Uncut press sheet, numbered by hand and signed by the designer
   • Certificate of authenticity for uncut press sheet.
3. To meet stringent stamp production standards.

Design Solution

Yousuf Karsh was Canada’s most famous portrait photographer. He captured the essence of the famous—all icons from different spheres of life, who marked the 20th century—in complex tones of black and white. The images of Indira Gandhi, John Kennedy, Lester Pearson, Picasso, or Hemingway, to name just a few, are distinct representations by Karsh.

In selecting the images I wanted to convey not only form—the Karsh look—but also his skill of representing the subject. I was particularly interested in creating a contrast between the subjects of the three stamps: Churchill’s fearless self-assurance juxtaposed to that of Audrey Hepburn’s gracefully expressed femininity and the photographer’s rendition of self.

“The devil is in the detail” kind of idea is an ever-present notion when designing stamp products. It increases not only the visual interest of each particular philatelic item, but also the value for collectors. In this regard, the use of the original photos without cropping, the subtle allusion of the white picture mount surrounding each stamp, the muted patterns superimposed on grey backgrounds, or layout configurations responding to specific perforation requirements, all contribute to this idea.

Design Requirements

Established in 1831, Maison Albert Bichot is a well-known French wine producer with products in more than 100 countries. The company mandated Paprika to create labels that respected the Bichot family tradition while adapting to new products specifically targeted for distribution in North America and Asia.

Design Solution

Our labels focus on French know-how and reputation, as well as on the spirit and pleasure of drinking good wine.

Design Requirements

In the Québec market, frozen foods are not as positively perceived as in Europe, where they are a fully integrated part of the grocery list and of consumption patterns. Insight into the thinking of Québec consumers indicates that frozen goods are badly perceived because we associate them with down-market values.

The main idea was to create a new brand that offers an upscale range of products with an easy-going attitude. Conveying festive and elegant values, the brand had to be, above all, simple and practical: Cool & Simple, a name that conveys the values of the brand very well: simplicity and efficiency, the pleasant side of eating frozen foods.

Cool & Simple offers “upscale frozen foods with an authentic European flavour to be enjoyed at any time, on your own or with family and friends.”

Design Solution

The domestic stamp features a close-up of Maurice “Rocket” Richard’s game-worn #9 hockey sweater, which is currently housed in the Montreal Canadiens Hall of Fame. The older style, with its wool fabric and intricate detailing, really speaks to the team’s long history, capturing the magnitude of this anniversary. The jersey is also a powerful, unifying symbol in French-Canadian culture. “It’s sometimes called La Sainte Flanelle (the “Holy Shirt”).”

The design developed brings the brand attitude further into the territory of simplicity and elegance without any hint of snobbery. No photos of any situation in which eating is taking place, but rather photos that show actual size products in a natural state. A few crumbs complete the picture to give consumers the impression that someone has definitely been tempted. While the products are imported from Europe and are chosen with care, the packaging expresses the fun and chic side of frozen foods. Bon appétit!

Design Requirements

In its first 20 years, Okanagan Spring has grown to become BC’s leading craft beer brand. However, in recent years, their share has been slowly eroded by other craft brands, pseudo-craft brands and by the insurgence of strong imports like Stella and Heineken. Okanagan Spring’s target groups of 19-25 males who are just beginning to discover the value of craft beer over mainstream brands, and 25-40 males who have been long-standing fans of the brand, were seeing the brand as tired, stale and “my Dad’s beer,” not something they valued

Despite top marks for the liquid itself, the packaging followed the category clichés of “old world” ribbons, banners and crests, oval labels, and zero unique communication. It was a “logo on a bottle”; nothing more.

Multiple rounds of research were conducted by the Lana Porter Group resulting in a green light from consumers to completely overhaul the packaging system to reflect an ideal positioning of “craftsmanship, purity and authenticity” rather than the logo-centric and “historic” packaging that was the brand’s, and remains the industry’s, norm.

Design Solution

The new Packaging Platform shows “Know Your Beer” in all its glory, from the first-ever “Beer Colour Scale,” to ideal serving temperatures, first brew dates, and the Brewmaster’s certification, to diagrams and writing that tell the story behind every beer that they make. Functionally, the branding is stronger and more prominent and the flavour differentiation through colour and type is unmistakable. All these elements add up to a brand that not only expresses itself well, but one that considers the needs of its users by helping them choose and discover new beers with more information at hand, and helps them enjoy them to their fullest.

Design Requirements

Critically acclaimed blues musician and bird watcher Paul Reddick sought yet another divergent direction with the release of this unique hybrid of blues and traditional music.

Design Solution

Compass360 responded with a design reflective of the album’s optimistic attitude and lyrical references to the natural world. It also employed some of the illustrations of the late, great, John James Audubon.

Design Requirements

When the bakery introduced its first sprouted grain bread, it was a new and unique product on the market. Over time, competitors copied the process and Silver Hills lost its differentiation. Karacters was asked to revitalize Silver Hills’ brand and identity, and design a package that would set the bakery apart. They wanted to change consumer perceptions about its products being niche health foods and appeal to a broader audience of families and individuals seeking a healthy lifestyle.

Design Solution

Leveraging the equity of Squirrelly, karacters developed a family of eclectic names for the breads that would be equally as memorable and would establish the brand personality. Each variety features a whimsical illustration, a bold colour palette and a product story that supports the simplicity and integrity of the Silver Hills brand. Ongoing production of these various SKUs run into the tens of thousands.

Design Requirements

Féria du vélo is a series of four separate events, including a tour of the Island of Montréal. The events have several targets, but one single challenge: give Montrealers an appetite to cycle.

Design Challenge

Vélo Québec spends most of its resources on the Féria events. The posters play an important role in the communications strategy, since they are posted by citizens in various sites.

Design Objective

Show the celebration, inform on the different events and get a special tone for the 25th anniversary of the organization.

Design Solution

The posters present graphical fireworks. The number “25” is front and center and is the anchor for all the information presented on the poster. The four posters, when joined together, form a long and colourful parade.

Design Requirements

A new event was born in Montréal in November 2009. SPIN is the latest meeting for discovering digital entertainment. It is organized by Alliance numérique de Montréal.

Design Challenge

The digital entertainment world could seem complicated for someone in the general public. Since this event was open to everyone, the role of the design was to make SPIN approachable and attractive.

Design Objective

Attract visitors at SPIN’s various sites and present a younger attitude than the other events organized by Alliance numérique de Montréal.

Design Solution

The poster carries the spirit of discovery and of the game. With a closer look, the design reveals its icons of the analog game, the ancestor of today’s digital game. In looking from a farther distance the design reveals more complex designs like the high-definition games of today.

Design Requirements

The poster for the exhibition by Yokoo Tadanori had to showcase the many values of this poster artist and designer, nicknamed “the Japanese Andy Warhol.”

Design Solution

The poster created for the UQAM Design Centre for an exhibition on Yokoo Tanadori’s art is a tribute to the artist’s work, based on the 1960s pop art tradition of mixing motifs and colours.

Design Requirements

The Commissaires Gallery/Boutique is a Montreal exhibition space dedicated to unique creations from international designers. The exhibition “The Maple Leafs have always had nicer jerseys.” Design from Toronto presented the work of selected Toronto designers.

Design Solution

The poster references the traditional Maple Leafs hockey jersey. The “C” which usually identifies the captain in hockey, here represents the “C” in Commissaires.

Design Requirements

The graphic requirements were in part determined by the context itself, and by the creative idea. A theatre troupe, the cultural industry, budgetary constraints, an offer of performances that exceeded demand and, above all, the need to be noticed and be seen.

Design Solution

A five-poster concept distributed by billposting only. A suite of casual portraits of the five actors that reflect the troupe’s image. The suite concept is designed around the title of the play, “Pi…?”, a Quebec expression used when a listener wants to hear more (“and then…?” in English).

Design Requirements

For our 2009 Holiday Season gift, we decided to play on the all-too-common “bottle of wine” gift idea.

Design Challenge

Vélo Québec spends most of its resources on the Féria events. The posters play an important role in the communications strategy, since they are posted by citizens in various sites.

Design Solution

The joke was that our gift came with no bottle and no wine… just a big box with 8 thought-provoking, smile-inducing wine bags inside — each one a concept on its own, such as:

• In case of emergency, pull the handle… but be careful. It may contain traces of cheap wine.
• Did you know it takes 10 minutes of skipping to burn off the calories in a single glass of wine? Fortunately the string on the handle can be used as a skipping rope.
• A kick from champagne… before they’re pulled, the handles are shaped like a champagne flute.
• It’s all there and more. We wouldn’t string you along. Honest!

Design Requirements

BC Adventure provides travel and tourism information on vacations, lodging, accommodation and hotels in BC. It is the largest travel guide in the province, helping over 5 million people plan vacations in the province of British Columbia.

Design Solution

The first rule of wilderness survival is “be prepared.” That’s why BC Adventure wanted to make sure everyone who stepped through their door left at least a little more prepared for the wild. Made from organic beef jerky, this laser-etched business card is good to eat for up to a year — in case you find yourself stuck in a precarious situation.

Design Requirements

This year, the obvious Christmas gift to give our clients, just like our grandparents did in their time, was oranges.

Design Solution

Not only did we like the sentimental charm of this tradition, we also found it an appropriate, modern healthy gift—packed with vitamin C—to counter today’s global health concerns.

Design Requirements

L’humour devait être au RDV.

Design Solution

On y propose une vidéo inusitée en noir et blanc – se voulant un clin d’oeil à David Lynch et à Michel Gondry – qui met en vedette l’équipe déguisée avec des têtes d’animaux canadiens.

Design Requirements

Paprika sends a holiday season gift to clients and friends each year. We thought the opportunity to create graffiti would be well received. After all, graffiti artists get to be expressive, make a statement, speak up and protest. Graffiti is a way to vent and get relief. So how could we free the graffiti artist in people, let them grab a pen to lay out their gut feelings on the same kinds of walls and other open spaces that typically display graffiti?

Design Solution

We created an experimental book with large pages of images that made excellent graffiti landscapes. The pictures were taken in Europe and in North America.

Design Requirements

For our 2009 Holiday Season gift, we decided to play on the all-too-common “bottle of wine” gift idea.

Design Challenge

Under the signature “Le Musée grandit” (The Museum is growing), we produced temporary signage for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to hide construction areas inside and out. The project’s name speaks to both the expansion of Museum space and improved services (a concert hall and new galleries will open in a fourth pavilion).

Design Solution

With yellow (one of the Museum’s corporate colours) as a thematic link, we used barricade tape (a fixture in the building industry) to explore the institution’s permanent collection in relation to the ongoing construction, as well as sounds and noises connected to this world.

Design Requirements

The Commissaires Gallery/Boutique is a Montreal exhibition space dedicated to unique creations from international designers. In this case, it was product designer Philippe Malouin.

Design Solution

Malouin’s famous “Hanger Chair” led us to expand its usage to everyday objects. We re-worked the common hanger so it became not only the invitation, but also the poster and signage for the exhibition.

Design Requirements

In 2008, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) dedicated an exhibition to poet Paul-Marie Lapointe, whose work combines improvisation, social challenge and linguistic invention. His amusing and innovative efforts, especially with words in inventive layouts, greatly influenced us.

Design Solution

The exhibition’s staging offered a new way to use space. For the first time, the eight concrete columns surrounding the exhibition area in the Arts and Literature section, and the showcases at the service counters on all four levels of the Grande Bibliothèque, featured the event’s colours. These visual displays did not simply echo the exhibition, they also provided a unique way to read the works.

Design Requirements

On a weekend, the general public gets an inside look at design offices and agencies (graphic design, architecture landscape architecture, industrial design, interior design, etc.). The third edition featured Paprika at the Commissaires Gallery and Boutique.

Design Solution

We recycled old doors to display our recent projects. The doors were used as tables and as folding screens. The concept originated from the French name of the event, “Portes ouvertes” which translates to open doors in English.

Design Requirements

Féria du vélo is a series of four separate events, including a tour of the Island of Montréal. The events have several targets, but one single challenge: give Montrealers an appetite to cycle.

Design Challenge

Design challenge: Vélo Québec spends most of its resources on the Féria events. The posters play an important role in the communications strategy, since they are posted by citizens in various sites.

Design Objective

Show the celebration and inform on the different events.

Design Solution

Since the rallying cry is about air, what better to illustrate than bicycle tire tubes to become this new bicycle-friendly alphabet?

Design Requirements

Foxtrot is a slab-serif typefamily created for running text at display sizes. The twelve proportional weights are designed to work together to increase the size of the letters while maintaining even weight, enabling subtle shifts in hierarchy. It was designed with museums and exhibition settings in mind. All styles include italics, small caps, extensive figure and arrow sets and full coverage of central and eastern European languages. Foxtrot is published by Typotheque and will be available for regular licensing in early 2010.

Design Solution

When a graphic designer makes type larger to signal a change in the hierarchy of information they are in effect employing two graphic devices to create this shift: size and weight. By allowing the user to scale up while maintaining even weight, Foxtrot’s near-monolinear forms place more control in the hands of the designer.

Design Requirements

Arietta began as part of the graduation requirement of the Type and Media course at the Royal Academy of Art (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten) in The Hague. The family will be expanded to include 3 more styles (a total of 8 styles) and will be distributed by the type foundry Village.

Design Solution

Arietta is a small text family that is primarily intended as a workhorse type for short subject and non-fiction books, the family consists of a transitional roman and multiple text italics with modulating degrees of stylistic contrast from the roman. The Book has a serious, unobtrusive and reserved tone, while the italic companions each exhibit a distinct style that provide a unique character and textural density.

Design Requirements

Féria du vélo is a series of four separate events, including a tour of the Island of Montréal. The events have several targets, but one single challenge: give Montrealers an appetite to cycle. Vélo Québec spends most of its resources on the Féria events. The posters play an important role in the communications strategy, since they are posted by citizens in various sites.

Design Objective

Design objective was to show the celebration, inform on the different events and get a special tone for the 25th anniversary of the organization.

Design Solution

It was created with simple geometric shapes (square, triangle and circular). The purpose of this typeface was to express the family-oriented and humorous angle of the event.

Design Requirements

The Organized Crime Winery is a small boutique, VQA estate winery located on the renowned Beamsville Bench of the Niagara Peninsula. Their little parcel of south-facing land hangs over the hillside edges of the Bench and provides an ideal environment for cool climate wine growing. The name of the winery was derived from a true story involving two feuding Mennonite Churches and a pipe organ.

On what is currently the grounds of the Jordan Historical Museum stood two Mennonite churches. One of the churches was more conservative, while the other was more progressive and did not adhere as strictly to earlier doctrines. It turns out that the more progressive Mennonite church acquired an organ, and this so enraged the more traditional church that one night, members of the congregation broke into the progressive church, stole the organ and then threw it down the embankment to the Twenty Mile Creek

Design Challenge

The challenge was to create a different web site than what we usually see. We wanted a solution which will not only provide access to the information that people would look for, but also to tell the story of the stolen organs.

Design Solution

The solution is an elegant and sharp-looking web site, with the elements of the wine label artwork creating visually interesting patterns. The images move in and out with a vertical: going “down the embankment to the Twenty Mile Creek.” The navigation uses the language one may find in the police section of a local paper.

Design Requirements

Montreal high-end furniture maker Periphere was launched 7 years ago by Thien and My Ta Thrung to offer their personal vision of furniture. Each year, they introduce new designs that reflect their vision of what furniture could or should be at that point in time. We had free rein to develop both the site map and the look of the site.

Design Solution

We stressed the minimalist, avant-garde character of the Periphere brand, with an accent on simplified navigation. This was done using cross-hair lines that create a rhythmically overlapping page/window effect. To highlight the pieces of furniture in their collection, we opted for a rough, stripped-down architecture and aesthetics.

Design Requirements

The Emily Carr University of Art + Design website redesign project began with a conversation with LiFT studios about overarching goals for the university and its website. How could the school’s website attract more talented students and faculty? How could this prestigious university present themselves internationally in a way that is both unique and appropriate? What aspects of the original website needed improvement?

Leveraging Emily Carr’s reputation and its colourful history, the site’s goal became to reflect the school’s new status as a degree-granting university and a leading, international art community. By showcasing Emily Carr’s pedagogy, research, faculty and student projects, the site was to raise awareness of what is going on at Emily Carr to the regional and international art and design communities, stressing its social relevance to the larger disciplines of art and design.

Measures of success were to include decreased bounce rate, increased applicant pool, higher quality of applicants, more trafficked site, student/faculty buy-in and increased community contribution.

Design Solution

LiFT Studios conducted interviews with staff, faculty, and students that acted as a compass to the process of discovery and development. We found that the vast majority of students were advanced users of web-based technologies, including social media, and had a desire to connect with other students in the school.

LiFT’s solution allows Emily Carr University to showcase the creativity, research and artwork individually contributed by staff, faculty and students. The site dynamically generates relationships between people, work, and courses, providing users with a way to navigate among these three areas in a naturally intuitive way. Special attention was also paid to re-organizing the site’s information architecture to facilitate the ease of navigation to specific areas of content. Another innovative aspect of the site is the Tenby—a 10 x 10 ‘pixel’ sketch that users can leave as a mark or comment throughout the site.

When first landing on the site, viewers are met with a showcase of images curated by the school, presenting images of events, gallery shows, students, or art work. Each image links to a page dedicated to that topic.

The site’s aesthetic refers to the materiality of artistic process: the colour palette is an adaption of the CMYK used in print; the deliberate use of pixels in textures and details calls to the material of digital media; page headers contain background textures derived from a number of artistic methods; film grain, ink, and paint are but a few examples.

Design Requirements

“At launch, [the new website] will showcase a compelling new design and a core set of content features and functionality that appeal to our target audiences. We will roll out significant, additional content and capabilities on a ongoing basis to expand our online offering and attract new and existing audiences (viewers, donors, and media partners). The goals are: extend the Knowledge brand and offering to the internet, motivate user-generated content and develop new revenue streams.” -Amy Lennon, Interactive Producer, Knowledge

Design Solution

The redesigned knowledge.ca actualizes the new Knowledge brand, appeals to new and existing audiences and supports key strategic goals of the website.

With an intelligent aesthetic, the overall design feels visually focused and straightforward. Users find an intuitive interface to quickly access and assess the large and dynamic Knowledge catalogue of programming. Only revealing functionality as you need it, the user interface was designed to feel simple and accessible. Opportunities to browse and discover the depth of content online rewards curiosity and encourages interaction.

Ultimately, the content is the focus the user experience. The solution leveraged the 400+ promos, clips and feature length videos available by ensuring video as a central element of the design.

A modern, fresh design that not only supports grow the new brand, but also involves the audience in how the brand will be shaped online through use commenting, rating and sharing on each and every program in the schedule.

In the end, the content found on Knowledge creates a tight bond with its audience. This in turn helps meets the objective of continuing to grow support through donations and social media.

Lastly, our solution is a flexible and scalable website that adapts to accommodate changes and new features without compromising the integrity and polish of the design.

Design Requirements

A communication agency’s Web site is a crucial working tool. It may serve as a portfolio, a referral, a business card and is sometimes used as an agency profile or prospecting tool…

Such a site must be easy to update with the agency’s latest projects. It must also be possible to organize projects by industry category, area of expertise or communications platform.

How could we feature all our communications services (integrated services of graphic design, advertising and interactivity be integrated) when we are only known for creation and design?

How could we make everything clear, accessible and easy to find, while showcasing all our achievements (first and foremost a display window for products and services that we offer)?

Design Solution

The solution? A site produced by orangetango. A site that reflects the agency’s multidisciplinary and integrated services (integrated services of graphic design, publishing, advertising and interactivity).

A site with creativity on the front burner.

Many thanks to our Graphex Sponsors of all levels: Primary (Domain7 and Hangar 18), Secondary (Kwantlen University, Functionfox, Ampco Grafix and 3S Printers), Media Sponsors (Taxi + The Creativie Finder), Supporting (Fierro Photography, AJ Graphics, LiFT Studios), Mohawk, Phil Chin Photography, Kirk, John Peachey & Associates